Dick Cheney funeral live: George Bush pays emotional tribute as ex-VP’s granddaughter

Liz Cheney recounted that while her father was a student at the University of Wyoming, he heard JFK urge young people to go into public service.

‘Dick Cheney became a Republican, but he knew that bonds of party must always yield to the single bond we share as Americans,’ she said.

George W. Bush said his friend Dick Cheney was content to stay out of the spotlight in his final years, and he hopes their paths will cross again one day.

‘In his final years, he was content to go his way,’ Bush said.

‘It’s something to be cherished when a man of his caliber has been your colleague and friend.

‘We are grateful for his good life, we honor his service, and we pray that somewhere up the trail, we will meet him again.’

Former GOP Representative Liz Cheney remembered her father and his love for America.

‘My dad’s devotion to America was deep and substantive. He spent his life studying the history of our great republic,’ she said.

‘He knew you couldn’t truly appreciate what it means to live in freedom if you didn’t understand the sacrifices of the generations who came before. And he made sure that his children and grandchildren understood this.’

Dick Cheney’s grandchildren paid a heartfelt tribute to their grandfather during his funeral service on Thursday afternoon.

Their mother, Liz Cheney, wiped away tears as her three kids took turns sharing their fond memories of him.

They recollected times of cooking the Thanksgiving turkey, fishing, watching old movies and going to rodeos together.

‘He always told us how proud he was of us, and we will always try to follow his example,’ said grandson Richard Perry.

Former President George W. Bush called his vice president a ‘true man of the West.’

‘If any voters came looking for a kind word and a hug, they’d have to settle for the kind word,’ Bush joked.

The former president described Cheney as a thoughtful leader, but noted he was not a typical politician.

‘In a profession that attracts talkers, he was a thinker and a listener,’ Bush said.

‘If any voters came hoping for a kind word and a hug, they’d have to settle for the kind word.’

Former President George W. Bush described the process of selecting Dick Cheney as his VP.

‘Twenty-five years ago, I had a big choice to make, a big job to fill. So I enlisted the help of a distinguished former White House chief of staff and secretary of defense to lead my search for a running mate,’ he said.

Bush said he and Cheney, ‘went through the files name by name. We talked over the various qualities I was looking for in a vice president: preparedness, mature judgment, rectitude and loyalty. Above all, I wanted someone with the ability to step into the presidency without getting distracted by the ambition to seek it.’

Eventually, the former president said, ‘I began to have a thought I could not shake. I realized the best choice for the vice president was a man sitting right in front of me.’

Battling to win a Senate seat for the staunchly Republican state of Wyoming back in 2013 against critics who labeled her a carpet bagger and nepo baby who had never held any elected office, Liz Cheney knew she couldn’t afford to look weak.

So, when the opposition put out a push poll and supporting TV ad that asked voters if they were aware Cheney ‘aggressively promotes gay marriage,’ she flatly denied it.

‘I am not pro-gay marriage,’ she said with typical Cheney family bluntness in a statement.

This, naturally, might be what someone standing in a Republican primary in such a deeply red state back in 2013 would say – or at least someone who didn’t have a lesbian sister who had married her wife only the previous year.

The astonishing family feud that erupted as a result between siblings Liz and Mary – one which also dragged in their parents – has reportedly all been smoothed over now. It may, however, cast something of a pall over Thursday’s funeral of the family patriarch, former US Vice President Dick Cheney, who died November 3.

Former NBC News correspondent Pete Williams, who was Cheney’s spokesman at the Pentagon, spoke during the former vice president’s funeral service.

He described how Cheney supported him when his sexuality became public.

‘In 1991, a magazine planned to run a story outing me. I knew it was coming, so I went up to his office and offered to resign,’ Williams said.

‘He wouldn’t hear of it, and for several days after that article appeared, he would call me on the direct line to my desk at the Pentagon to ask how I was doing and to tell me to get on with the job.’

Former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, as well as their wives, Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton, are not attending Dick Cheney’s funeral.

While it is common for former presidents to attend these events, it is not expected that they do.

It is more standard for former vice presidents to attend the funerals of fellow second-in-commands than a president with whom the deceased did not serve.

It is reported that Clinton was unable to make the funeral due to a scheduling conflict.

In conversation with Breitbart News, VP JD Vance offered his condolences to Dick Cheney’s family, saying:

‘Obviously, there are some political disagreements there, but he was a guy who served his country; we certainly wish his family all the best in this moment of grieving.’

Vance did not address reports that he nor President Trump were not invited to Cheney’s funeral service.

Dick Cheney once called Donald Trump the greatest threat to the United States in history.

‘In our nation’s 246 year history there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our Republic than Donald Trump,’ Cheney said.

‘He tried to steal the last election with lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him,’ Cheney said of Trump. ‘He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters.

‘He lost his election and he lost big. I know it, he knows it, and deep down I think most Republicans know it.’