1 Boring Old Man

Looking for Cheney

Where did the vice president stand on the question of firing Rumsfeld? Where does he stand now?

In the 10 days since President Bush fired Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, one figure is eerily missing from public view and public accounts of what occurred: Vice President Dick Cheney. As usual, America’s de facto prime minister is either literally or metaphorically in an undisclosed location.

With Rumsfeld, Cheney was responsible for the 180-degree reversal in Bush’s professed foreign policy — remember, Bush was the candidate who didn’t believe in getting U.S. troops involved in "nation-building." As much as Rumsfeld, Cheney was architect of both the Iraq war and the deeper doctrine behind the war — neo conservative assertion of America’s unilateral military might. Cheney, along with Rumsfeld, signed the 1997 manifesto of the so-called Project for a New American Century, calling for the United States to police the world in the name of democracy.

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In short, will Rumsfeld’s abrupt dismissal finally diminish Cheney’s unprecedented dominance of Bush? Or did the always cunning vice president read the writing on the wall and decide that it was time for his good friend Rumsfeld to go?

We will probably not know the definitive answer until people start writing memoirs, and Dick Cheney is not in the habit of giving me candid background interviews. But here are some clues.

The general premise in Washington is that James Baker is the big winner in the latest Republican power struggle, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as the secondary gainer. Baker is an arch-rival to Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the neocons…

I am intensely ambivalent about Dick Cheney. Back in the days of the other Gulf War under the other President Bush, I always thought he was a level headed, measured presence. The problem was that it was his presence that was compelling. I still feel that sometimes when he speaks. I think that presence helped Bush get elected in 2000 – a stabilizing older man from a previous Administration. So much for that idea! On the other hand, he seems now as close to [their favorite word] evil as I’m willing to allow. In my mind, he is a rigid, disdainful, narcissist who listens only to himself [and his wife, who is no less malignant]. I agree with Robert Kuttner [above], that Cheney imported the Neocons and their agenda into Bush’s Administration. Rove got Bush into the White House. Cheney turned it into the Nightmare on Elm Street. It would be more than we could ever hope for that Bush has the cajones to send Cheney down to the minor leagues and to get himself some sane advice.

It is remarkable to me a single person can be as destructive as Dick Cheney has been in his six years in the White House. His disdain for the C.I.A., his "unitary executive," his rigid adherence to the Neoconservative "Bush Doctrine," his combination of dirty tricks and denial, his outright lying about any number of things, his sarcastic aura, and his domination of the Administration in the guise of being 2^nd in command, place him on top of the list that I thought Nixon had retired with Watergate. We will forget George W. Bush. He’s a real lightweight. Rumsfeld will fade into the annals of ineptitude. We’ll look back on Karl Rove as a successful illusionist who made a non-player look to many like a contender. But Dick Cheney will linger as one of the darkest actors in this particularly dark piece of our history.