- Anonymous: Beware the quiet man. For while others speak, he watches. And while others act, he plans. And when they finally rest... he strikes.
- Dick Cheney: [Speech before end credits roll] I can feel your incriminations and your judgment, and I am fine with that. You want to be loved? Go be a movie star. The world is as you find it. You've gotta deal with that reality that there are monsters in this world. We saw 3,000 innocent people burned to death by those monsters, and yet you object when I refuse to kiss those monsters on the cheek and say "pretty please." You answer me this, what terrorist attack would you have let go forward so you wouldn't seem like a mean and nasty fella? I will not apologize for keeping your family safe. And I will not apologize for doing what needed to be done so that your loved ones could sleep peaceably at night. It has been my honor to be your servant. You chose me. And I did what you asked.
- Kurt: [Narrating] As the world becomes more and more confusing, we tend to focus on the things that are right there in front of us. While ignoring the massive forces that actually change and shape our lives. And, with people working longer and longer hours, for less and less, when we do have free time, the last thing we want is complicated analysis of our government, lobbying, international trade agreements, and tax bills. So it's no surprise that when a monotone bureaucratic Vice President came to power, we hardly noticed as he achieved a position of authority that very few leaders in the history of America ever have. Forever changing the course of history for millions and millions of lives. And he did it like a ghost. With most people having no idea who he is or where he came from.
- [while sitting down to eat at Bush's ranch]
- George W. Bush: Whaddaya say?... I want you to be my VP. I want you, you're ma vice.
- Dick Cheney: Well, George, I, uh... I'm a CEO... of a large company. And I have been Secretary of Defense... and I have been White House Chief of Staff. The Vice Presidency is a mostly symbolic job.
- George W. Bush: Uh-huh.
- Dick Cheney: However, if we came to a, uh... different... understanding... I can handle the more mundane... jobs. Overseeing bureaucracy... military... energy... and, uh... foreign policy.
- [pause]
- George W. Bush: [Finishes cleaning chicken grease off his fingers and stares at Cheney for a few seconds, then points at him] That sounds good!
- Lynne Cheney: My sweet Richard. Dance'd nimbly round the king's hearth thou hath. Even whilst clamored I for more, more! Parched maw craned towards the drip, drip of imagined waters. But I say to you now, rest, retire. Thou hast honored thy vows to wife and crown.
- Dick Cheney: Has blindness usurped vision in you, my wife? No mere treaty is our union. Thou shared thy torch's flame with mine. Revealing halls and spires... of long faded empires. And now, I may hold aloft mine own fiery cresset. And make flesh our bond of power.
- Lynne Cheney: Dare I? Dare I let hope's beak place gathered bramble upon my heart for future's nest? Many winters past hath I let this hope die, cruel winds silencing tiny birds' needy cries. Now that it hath arrived, I say yea.
- Lynne Cheney, Dick Cheney: Yea.
- Lynne Cheney: Mine own blood and will are yours 'til pierced be the last soldier's breastplate, spilling forth its ruby jelly treasures.
- Rush Limbaugh: Love is the only human emotion you can't fake.Except women. And thank God they can.
- George W. Bush: So we gonna do this thing, or what? I mean, is this happening?
- Dick Cheney: We, uh, have found some very interesting candidates. Um, if we could schedule a three-hour window to get through...
- George W. Bush: I meant you. I want you to be my VP. You're the solution to my problems.
- Dick Cheney: No. I'm CEO of a large company. I have been, uh, Secretary of Defense. I have been Chief of Staff. Uh, the vice presidency is mostly a symbolic job.
- George W. Bush: Right, right. I can see how that wouldn't be, uh... enticing to you.
- Dick Cheney: However... the vice presidency is also defined by the president. And if were to come to a, uh... different understanding...
- George W. Bush: Uh-huh. Go on. I'm listenin'.
- Dick Cheney: I sense that, uh, you're a kinetic leader. You make decisions based on instinct.
- George W. Bush: I am. People always said that.
- Dick Cheney: Yeah, yeah. Very different. Very different from, uh, from your father in that regard. Now, maybe I can, uh, handle the more mundane jobs. Overseeing bureaucracy, managing military, uh, energy, uh, foreign policy.
- [pause]
- George W. Bush: That sounds good! Never wanna be the kind of team owner that, uh, pulls the starter in the fourth inning.
- Dick Cheney: Mm-hmm.
- George W. Bush: That's the manager's job.
- Dick Cheney: One more thing. My daughter, Mary.
- George W. Bush: Right. Rove tells me she likes girls.
- Dick Cheney: Now, I know you have to, uh, run against, uh, gay marriage in the South, Midwest, and, uh...
- [clears throat]
- Dick Cheney: But it's my daughter, and that line is drawn in concrete.
- George W. Bush: Don't you say another word. So long as you don't mind us pushing that messaging, we're okay with you sittin' that one out. I think it's important for all the... all the Mary's in the world, you know?
- Dick Cheney: [sighs]
- George W. Bush: No problemo. We got a deal?
- Dick Cheney: Then I believe this could work.
- George W. Bush: Hehehe!
- [claps]
- George W. Bush: Hot damn! Yeah. Well, good. Hey... let's celebrate.
- [they clink their glasses of iced tea]
- George W. Bush: Cheers.
- Dick Cheney: Cheers.
- Colin Powell: [storming towards his Chief of Staff] Larry, have you seen this speech?
- Lawrence Wilkerson: Yes, sir. It's bone-thin. I saw at least five pieces of disproved intel in there.
- Colin Powell: Who wrote it?
- Lawrence Wilkerson: They said it was the president, but I think you can guess who really wrote it.
- George W. Bush: [about campaigning] It's a grind, I tell ya. Buses, bologna sandwiches. Hell, I like people, but I mean, ya know, enough's enough.
- Dick Cheney: [in his mind, during his first meeting with George W. Bush about his VP] He wants to impress his father... more than anything.
- Donald Rumsfeld: [carrying two drinks] They gave me the keys to the damn palace! Chief of Staff.
- Dick Cheney: Holy shit! You salty son of a bitch. You did it.
- [glasses clink]
- Donald Rumsfeld: All right, we have work to do. Kissinger is trying to kiss and make up with the Soviets.
- Dick Cheney: Well, let's make sure that shit doesn't happen.
- Donald Rumsfeld: [laughing] Yeah.
- [cut to oval office meeting]
- Dick Cheney: [to president Ford] If I may, I believe I may have a way to put an oar in the water, on Russia. What if... we create...
- Henry Kissinger: [interrupts] Mr. President.
- Gerald Ford: Come on Henry, let's hear Dick out.
- Kurt: [narration] One of Dick Cheney's special super powers, was the ability to make the most wild and extreme ideas sound measured and professional.
- Dick Cheney: What if on a unilateral basis, we all put miniature wigs on our penises and we walked out to the White House lawn, and jerked each other off. So, like a puppet show, but much more enjoyable?
- Henry Kissinger: Hmmm... I do like a good puppet show.
- Gerald Ford: I say we do it.
- Reporter: Henry Kissinger has been relieved as National Security Adviser and replaced by Brent Scowcroft.
- Reporter 2: They're calling it the Halloween Massacre.
- Henry Kissinger: Mr President.
- Gerald Ford: Hold on, Henry.
- Reporter 3: Donald Rumsfeld has replaced Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger.
- Reporter 4: [cut to the chief of staff's office] And Dick Cheney has been chosen, as the...
- Lynne Cheney: Youngest Chief of Staff in history! It's amazing. It's a dream.
- Kurt: [narration] And as the new Chief of Staff and with the Presidency weakened by Watergate, Dick Cheney wanted to find out exactly how much power did the President have.
- Dick Cheney: I would like to reinstate Executive Authority... How?
- Kurt: Antonin Scalia, a young lawyer with the justice department who would later go on to serve on the Supreme Court, rocked Dick's world.
- Antonin Scalia: Interesting you should ask. Are you familiar with the theory of the unitary executive?
- Dick Cheney: No. Tell me about it.
- Antonin Scalia: Uh... it is an interpretation that few like myself happen to believe, in Article II of the Constitution that vests the President with absolute executive authority. And I mean absolute.
- Kurt: [...] The Unitary Executive Theory. Certain legal scholars believed that, if the President does anything it must be legal, because it's the President. To hell with checks and balances, especially during times of war. This was the power of kings, pharaohs, dictators.
- Dick Cheney: This is perfect.
- [dryly chuckles]
- Kurt: Dick Cheney was a foot soldier in the power games of Washington DC. But with the Unitary Executive Theory, he could become Galactus, devourer of planets. But then, it was election night. And there was one big problem...
- Barbara Walters: [television broadcast] the winner with two hundred and seventy two electoral votes... we have wondered which of us gonna make this announcement James Earl Carter, the next President of the United States.
- Kurt: And just like that... it was all over.
- Barbara Walters: Dick Cheney, the president's chief of staff, ah... he does not have a job. At one point, he was a broker
- [overlapping dialogue]
- Lynne Cheney: It can't be. It's got to be some sort of a mistake, or miscalculation.
- Donald Rumsfeld: There goes the neighborhood.
- Gerald Ford: Well... thank you all.
- Reporter: The Republicans have lost the Presidency. They are the minority in Congress in most states. With America demanding change...
- Reporter 2: The GOP is a party in disarray. Clearly Watergate, the Vietnam war...
- George Bush Sr.: Dick, I just wanted to say thank you for getting the House not to override the President's veto the fairness doctrine.
- Dick Cheney: Not a problem. Happy to get rid of any big government regulations.
- George Bush Sr.: Thank you. Great.
- [freeze frame]
- Kurt: [narration] The fairness doctrine was a law from the forties that required any broadcast TV, or radio news to present both sides of an issue equally. Its repeal would lead to the rise of opinion news.
- Morton Downey Jr: [smash cut] Let me tell you something, you skinny, human prophylactic.
- Rush Limbaugh: [split edits] Love is the only human emotion that you can't fake except women, and thank God they can.
- News Anchor: [hard cut] And eventually to the realization of Roger Aile's dream. FOX news, which would go on to become the number one news station in the United States and swing America even more to the right.
- [signal ends]
- Paul Wolfowitz: Who wants to be an anonymous source?
- Douglas Feith: Make sure you work in the phrase, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." That focus-grouped through the roof.
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