Mary Cheney: Closet Foodie?

By JULIETTE ROSSANT For those whose reading consists mainly of cookbooks, get ready for this mind-bender: what Foodie could have imagined that the first political memory of the daughter of Dick Cheney and Lynne Cheney would be Food-related? Yet that is exactly what Mary Cheney claims in her new book Now It's My Turn: A Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life (Threshold/Simon & Schuster 2006): My first political memory is a sweet one -- a chocolate, peanut butter and jelly one, to be exact... a drawer full of all sorts of miniature candy bars... [and] a jar of peanut butter and jelly... Liz and I were convinced that it was one of the greatest inventions of all time. We would stand there eating candy and trying to figure out how someone had managed to get perfect vertical columns of peanut butter and jelly into the same jar... Sadly, this is the most vivid memory of Food which Ms. Cheney shares, yet it is in fact highly revealing of the "quiet one" of a highly visible, political family who stood forward for a few brief moments to proclaim that she was lesbian, for it is ultimately the only truly intimate moment in the entire book. Homosexuality and lesbianism are no more or less prevalent in the kitchen than anywhere else -- unless you subscribe to the belief that artists (including chefs) exhibit more creativity-related tendencies (such as alternative sexual orientation) than other groups of people do. In Politics, homosexuality has been totally taboo until very recently. Its slow acceptance, still in progress, is due probably (and sadly) more to the spread of AIDS than to the Gay Rights and Lesbian Rights movements of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Ms. Cheney is only in her 30s, so she was too young to be a part of such political movements. When she does finally discuss her "coming out," Ms. Cheney is brief, matter-of-fact, and indirect, hiding the event in the protective context of another -- a car wreck (pp. 33-34). She spends more time talking about banal Food events, like mis-deliveries of hotel dinners and lattes while on the campaign trail (pp. 54-57) -- a good indicator of the depth of the book. One gets the feeling that, while Ms. Cheney insists her parents were accepting and supportive of Ms. Cheney's announcement, somehow she knew or learned to move on and not let this little matter of lesbianism undermine or overrule her life. And this is commendable in and of itself -- yet ever so duplicitous and terrifyingly calculated in the great Cheney tradition. The unwritten yet glaring message of this book is that Mary Cheney put aside the issue of her sexual orientation to support the political activities of Mom and Dad -- for the Family, for the Good of the Nation, for God and Country -- WASP America, as it were. Mary Cheney's Now It's My Turn is the book of a cold, remote, calculating politico -- or at least the child of cold, remote, calculating politico parents -- sanitized, sterile, and ultimately not very interesting at all. Its multiple purpose is at once to make Ms. Cheney's sexual orientation more palatable to Cheney believers, to toss black sheep Mary a pretty penny (the book advance was a cool $1 Million) since Dick, Lynne, and Liz are already making ever so much money themselves (hence the real meaning of "Now It's My Turn"? *), and to give Dick the excuse to never write his own autobiography since daughter Mary has written so glowingly of him. Of course dedicated this book "To my mother and father" -- Ms. Cheney is so sanitized that she did not dedicate it "To Dear Old Mom and Dad." Gosh golly! As a Foodie, Ms. Cheney fails completely -- granting that she has never claimed to be. Still, Food can provide wonderful moments to communicate intimate and immediate personal experiences, but Ms. Cheney passes on the safe topic of Food as well as the unsafe topic of Sex. For example, after one of dad's heart-attacks, they share a holiday meal in the hospital: Thanskgiving dinner was served buffet-style in the hospital room next to Dad's. As it was described for me over the phone, between the food Alma Powell [wife of Colin Powell] had prepared and the dishes contributed by some wonderful friends of Kathleen [Shanahan], there was more than enough to feed our family, staff members, friends, and the Secret Service agents who were working that day. No chef's food is pictured here; instead, we see only the name dropping and thanks to supporters so reminiscent of an Oscar nigh acceptance speech that makes Washington the East Coast version of Disneyland and reduces Politics in America to ever so much B.S. Unlike The Player of Hollywood, however, Mary Cheney and family play to win. Always. Meantime, pass the Goober Grape, please. * Let's not forget the forgettable cash-in on Bush-Cheney connections, The Bush Family Cookbook (see previous article). 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