Pallbearers:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/latestnewsstory.cfm?storyID=3571283&thesection=news&thesubsection=world

One of the speakers was supposedly former Canadian PM Brian Mulroney who (we are told) was pegged to 'deliver the eulogy' -- he and Reagan were pals. Then again, yesterday we were told that Mulroney was going to be a pallbearer, but perhaps I'm a little early on all this.

The first speaker was Ted Stevens (R-AL), President Pro-Tem of the Senate. The second was, indeed, Denny Hastert, Speaker of the House.

Make that AK. Preview is your friend, preview is your friend.

rogue -- I believe that Mr. Mulroney is slated to be one of the speakers at the National Cathedral tomorrow.

In the Capitol yesterday the speakers all were Capitol people (including Mr. Cheney: President [presiding officer] of the Senate).

Sounds right ... I watched assorted coverage this a.m. and didn't see any evidence of a Canadian presence.

Here is some news you won't get from the lying liberal stinking news media. The big secret is...Cheney is one of the greatest heros to come out of the Vietnam War!

Samuel H. Jacobsons "Dick Cheney: Americas Secret Warrior!" documents the role Vice President Dick Cheney played in American covert actions in Vietnam, beginning in 1961 when John F. Kennedy decided that if Hanoi could wage a guerilla war against the South, the U.S. could do the same in the North. Dissatisfied with the CIA's initial results, Kennedy passed responsibility for covert operations to the Pentagon. As part of that effort Dick Cheney and many other brilliant Americans were recruited.

General Westmoreland, Commander of American forces in Vietnam, vastly underestimated the imaginative ways in which underground activities could destabilize an enemy. American covert action focused on disrupting two vital "centers of gravity": the North's own internal stability and the Ho Chi Minh Trail that ran through Laos and Cambodia. Cheney was involved in the former.

Such activities ran counter to the Geneva Accords. This explains Dick Cheneys lack of concern today for the UN and World Court. Nervous diplomats placed them under severe constraints. Permission always had to be obtained from the top, which after 1964 meant an excessively cautious President Johnson, concerned that China would be goaded into intervening openly in Vietnam as it had in Korea.

Had U.S. political and military leaders backed these secret operations with less trepidation, Vietnam might well have been a success story. A revealing look at what unconventional warfare and clandestine operations can really achieve -- IF they are integrated into a cohesive warfighting strategy ...and why they will fail or backfire if prosecuted with only half-hearted support within the highest councils of our government. Samuel H. Jacobson unveils a whole new dimension to Dick Cheneys prowess at espionage, sabotage, and special operations in this page-turning history.

The creative thinking that Cheney contributed to America's secret exploits reads like a racy novel, from the adroit brainwashing and release of captured fishermen to the fabrication of a phantom secret society based on a 15th-century anti-Chinese hero, plus innumerable nasty booby traps.

Author Samuel H. Jacobson has had unusual access to prominent protagonists and to thousands of classified documents made available only to him while he researched this book. Dick Cheney: Americas Secret Warrior! clearly lays out what was achieved and what might have been achieved by covert action in Vietnam, ending with a thoughtful analysis of lessons learned for future politicians and operatives in a post-cold war world.

Review

The Washington Post Book World: An exceptional warrior...a soldier's soldier. Jacobson has written a fine and affecting biography.