Lynne Anne Cheney

Lynne Ann Cheney (née Vincent; born August 14, 1941) is the wife of former United States Vice President Dick Cheney and served as the Second Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009. She is a novelist, conservative scholar, and former talk-show host.

A descendant of Mormon pioneers with roots in Denmark, England, Ireland, and Wales, Lynne Ann Vincent was born in Casper, Wyoming. Her father was Wayne Edwin Vincent, an engineer; her mother, Edna Lybyer, became a deputy sheriff. She was raised Presbyterian and became Methodist upon her marriage to Dick Cheney. Cheney received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature with highest honors from Colorado College, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. She furthered her education with a Master of Arts degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a Ph.D. in 19th century British literature from the University of Wisconsin at Madison (her dissertation was entitled "Matthew Arnold's Possible Perfection: A Study of the Kantian Strain in Arnold's Poetry").

Lynne Cheney served as chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1986 to 1993. In 1995 she founded American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a think tank devoted to reforming higher education in America.

She is a senior fellow in education and culture at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. She also serves as a director of Reader's Digest Association, Inc. From 1995 to 1998, Cheney served as a co-host of the Sunday edition of CNN's Crossfire, replacing Tony Snow.

Lynne Cheney served on Lockheed Corporation's board of directors from 1994 to 2001, a $120,000-a-year post she gave up shortly before her husband's inauguration; Cheney served on the board's Finance, and Nominating and Corporate Governance committees.

In 2000 she was mentioned as a possible conservative female pick for Republican Vice Presidential nominee on the George W. Bush ticket.The appointed head of the nominating committee was her husband, Dick Cheney, then the CEO of Halliburton, who eventually emerged as Bush's choice.

She repeatedly spoke out against violent and sexually explicit lyrics in popular music including rapper Eminem (Marshall Bruce Mathers III), picking up on an issue originally made famous by former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper. She also criticized video game makers for similar content.

On an October 10, 2007 episode of The Daily Show, Lynne Cheney stated that she opposed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Source: Wikipedia.org (Retrieved September 7th, 2010)