a man walking down a plane

I did not expect the funeral of Dick Cheney in Washington, DC this week to stir as much reflection in me as it did. But it did. And perhaps that says as much about our current moment as it does about the man whose life was honored.

Reflections On The Funeral Of Dick Cheney

Richard B. Cheney was, without question, one of the most consequential political figures of my lifetime. I disagreed sharply with him on the Iraq War (though I’m sorry to admit I was a fervent supporter of such nation-building back in 2003), which I believe history will continue to judge as a strategic blunder. But disagreement over policy is one thing; questioning the motives of a man who devoted nearly his entire life to public service is another. Whatever one thinks of his decisions, he did not act out of malice or personal greed. He believed deeply, sincerely, that the actions he championed would advance American interests and protect the nation he loved.

And love his country he did. That came through unmistakably during the service. He loved his family too and the testimonies of his grandchildren and his daughter were moving, as was the testimony of former President George W. Bush.

The funeral itself was a reminder of something we have lost. It was dignified. It was civil. It was reverent without being sanctimonious. It reflected a time in American life when leaders of opposing parties could fiercely debate policy by day, then gather together in the same pews to honor a colleague who had passed. When civic religion, our shared rituals of state, tradition, and respect, was still something Americans leaned into rather than mocked or tore down.

The music, the readings, the eulogies: none of it felt performative. It felt like a nation at its best, even if the man being honored was often at the center of one of its fiercest controversies. There was something grounding in seeing political rivals, old colleagues, military leaders, Supreme Court justices, and diplomats share the same room, not to score points or stage a spectacle, but to remember a life and to acknowledge the seriousness of public duty.

I long for those kinds of days to return.

Not because the past was perfect, it wasn’t, but because even in our disagreements, there was at least a shared belief that America was a common project, not just us versus them. We argued, sometimes bitterly, but we did so within the same civic framework. Cheney reflected that older form of public seriousness, rooted in the idea that service required discipline, restraint, and stewardship.

When I worked in the White House, I met Cheney only once. It was a brief encounter and he was not very friendly…he was a man of few words, and I took no offense. How I wish we all could be as measured in our word choice as he was…

And that is what struck me most as I watched the service: not nostalgia for a political figure, but nostalgia for a certain kind of country, one where civility was not a performance, where political adversaries were not enemies, and where honor and restraint still shaped the way we conducted our public life.

That is the America I miss. And sitting through the funeral of a man I often disagreed with reminded me how badly we need a revival of that civic spirit.