Dick Cheney’s new memoir, In My Time, and the accompanying promotional tour, have cause a good deal of eyebrow-raising at his tendency to retrospectively alter the reality of his vice presidency. On MSNBC’s The Ed Show, Nation correspondent John Nichols discussed whether or not Cheney’s revisionist writing habits are part of an effort to merely sell books, or to push a political agenda. According to Nichols, Cheney is wealthy enough that the money made from book sales is inconsequential—instead, Cheney is trying to cement his importance in the Republican party.

“He’s selling a story line that he thinks will keep him as an elder statesman of the Republican party,” Nichols told Schultz. “He never sees himself as being finished politically.” If a GOP candidate is elected president in 2012, Nichols said, Cheney hopes to use this book to leverage himself into a counselor’s role to the new administration. For more, read Nichols’s latest post on Cheney’s memoir.

—Carrie Battan