Book Review: Oath and Honor

Here’s my book review for Oath and Honor by Liz Cheney. Don’t forget to leave a comment if you’ve read it too. And check out today’s writing prompt at the bottom of this post.

Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning by Liz Cheney offers a behind-the-scenes account of what happened leading up to, during, and after the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. 

Cheney’s no-nonsense, smart, diligent, and civic-minded fortitude comes across in this book in waves and allows her to offer a clear account of what matters to her above all else: the Oath of Office each public servant and official takes to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution. 

The more I read, the more I grew to appreciate Cheney’s concise manner of writing and speaking, and how she organized and explained everything in a way that was easy to understand and to-the-point while offering plenty of important and relevant details. I also appreciated that she never backslid into partisan politics in this book. Not. Once. She knew what she wanted to focus on in this book and she completed her mission successfully in my opinion. 

I also appreciated how Cheney outlined her involvement in the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol from 2021 to 2023. She outlined the details of how their investigation was organized, what work she was responsible for, and the most important snippets of their proceedings. If you listen to the audio version of this book, be forewarned that there are audio clips of insurrectionists storming the Capitol, as well as other clips of emotional testimony included —snippets that brought me back to that day, making me more emotional than I thought I would be while reading this book. 

Overall, I would recommend this book to those who are interested in learning more about the investigations that took place after the January 6th Attack, as well as those who want to be reminded that there are still a lot of individuals out there who will and do put democracy and their oaths of office over partisan politics every single day in the U.S., even when we don’t hear them (which is probably because they are busy working behind the scenes instead of lamenting perceived grievances to media outlets for mere entertainment). 

My favorite quote from the book is the timeliest, as the 2024 election is less than two weeks away: 

“We will be voting on whether to preserve our republic. As a nation, we can endure damaging policies for a four-year term. But we cannot survive a president willing to terminate our Constitution. 

… 

Everyone of us— Republican, Democrat, Independent —must work and vote together to ensure that Donald Trump and those who have appeased, enabled, and collaborated with him are defeated. This is the cause of our time.” (p. 367-8)  

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© All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.

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Today’s Writing Prompt