Why Cheney Can't Leave

I put myself on the record, months ago, arguing that the fix was in on Dick Cheney, and that the moment his numbers truly needed a boost, Bush -- rather like George Steinbrenner announcing that Manager Dick Howser, having won 103 games in 1981, was stepping down to pursue "once-in-a-lifetime real estate opportunities in Florida" -- would announce that Cheney was voluntarily leaving the ticket and would fill the slot with whoever helps him where he needs help at that point. At the time, I thought Senator Bill Frist was being groomed for that slot, credited with such marvelous achievements of caring government as the Medicare prescription drug bill!

(By the way, that aside in the previous paragraph represents just about the limit of my ability to slip baseball references into my writing. I'll leave that to George Will.)

I think I might have been wrong about Cheney. First, I hadn't thought about this at the time, but I suspect there's some truth to the idea that the Bushes do not want some young new GOP face to emerge who would overshadow Jeb Bush in 2008, either as successor or challenger, so Cheney remains a useful placeholder.

Second, who is there now who could replace Cheney? Probably not Frist -- his leadership does not tell a good story, and if the charge against Edwards is inexperience, Frist's only been in public service four years longer, and rose faster. As for Giuliani, Pataki, Ridge, and others: The party simply does not have the option of picking anyone who wavers from the orthodoxy on abortion and gay rights. Do you want to be the one to introduce an ethnic mayor of New York who after his divorce lived with a gay couple to a Madison Square Garden packed with delegates selected through Rove's nurture-the-base process? (OK, you probably do, but that's a different motivation.) As for anyone in the administration: Rice, Powell, Thompson, Ridge again -- every one of them, if nominated, would put a specific debate about their own role in Iraq or the other debacles at the center of the campaign. There's not a single person in this administration who has anything better than a mixed record, although I don't know about the Secretary of Agriculture. Governors? Apparently the sainted Bill Owens of Colorado has been found wanting, due to an ugly divorce and the exposure of the financial house of cards that is his state. And just as Dean emerged in the primaries because there were no other credible Democratic governors, there aren't that many credible Republicans now. Schwarzenegger wouldn't do it, Rowland has quit, the midwestern governors are gone. Not a lot of options, and none well-known. Finally, McCain might still be the prize for either party, but I have no hesitation in speculating that, while McCain did give some actual thought to a hypothetical Kerry offer before preemptively and courteously turning it down, he would give no thought at all to a Bush offer. He would be unfree to speak his mind, and the ticket might lose anyway, taking his entire political career and reputation with it. Plus, Bush wouldn't do it.

And I also have come to think that there may be some truth to the idea that Cheney is the driving intelligence behind the entire Bush presidency. The insistence on being interviewed together by the 9/11 commission is one huge hint; the many instances in which Cheney seems to speak for the administration but with a tone and argument totally unrelated to Bush's, is another. The fact that Bush sometimes gets his message into line with Cheney's, rather than the other way around, speaks volumes. And if Cheney is driving the decisions, then the man who picked the vice president is unlikely to fire himself.

One could argue that Cheney could retain his influence with Bush without the title of Vice President, and that's probably true. But what he would not retain would be his ability to dominate internecine warfare, which is what it's all about. He would not be able to march over to the CIA and demand to read raw data if he was merely an advisor to the President. Or, imagine how difficult it must have been for Josh Bolten to ask Cheney to please confirm with the President his hasty order on Sept. 11 to shoot down a plane headed for Washington. Cheney-as-advisor could not give such orders, and the natural deference that "staff" must give to elected officials would not protect Cheney from the many enemies he has made within his own government.

There is also the fact that, except for Larry Lindsey and Paul O'Neill, and George Tenet, this administration cannot fire anyone. It is such a rigid, stay-on-message corporate culture that the information that someone has to go cannot penetrate to the top.

I am beginning to think that behind all the bluster, George W. Bush is a frightened, confused individual, totally unable to understand the magnitude of the decisions he got talked into making, and dealing with it by becoming paralyzed, letting the individuals who represent power centers within his administration, such as Rove, Powell, Wolfowitz, Cheney and Rice run off entirelly on their own. Those who are able to manage the president's message, such as Cheney, are at a bureacratic advntage. But politically, this White House is a sitting duck, and as a matter of psychology, I think the Final Days of this crowd will make for amazing reading.