Neo-Kremlinology
Insight Magazine reports that the Veep will be off the reviewing stand by the time of the 2007 May Day Parade. The article itself is thinly sourced and probably best appreciated as fodder for political conspiracy theories. Who has the knives out? The author drops one clue:
Mr. Bush, the sources said, has rejected the advice from circles close to his father, the former president, to dismiss Mr. Cheney.
Circles close to the President’s father, the former president, have been trying to get Junior to do this or that for four years now without, to my recollection, a single significant success. Their only tribune inside the Administration, Colin Powell, is now outside the Administration. The Scowcrofts and Bakers couldn’t even get themselves an audience with a “high government official” unless they coated themselves in feathers and jumped in front of the Vice Presidential shotgun. I assume the younger Bush’s disdain for his father’s retainers is some oedipal thing. I don’t expect it to change now.
Which doesn’t mean Cheney isn’t on his way out. But Insight is not conclusion.
Trackback by Outside The Beltway | OTB —
February 28, 2006 @ 7:32 am
Cheney to Resign after Midterm Elections?
Insight on the News reports that Vice President Dick Cheney will retire after the 2006 elections, clearing the way for President Bush to appoint a successor.
Vice President Dick Cheney is expected to retire within a year. Senior GOP sources envisio…
Comment by Michael —
February 28, 2006 @ 7:38 am
Hmm. Not that I think we couldn’t find a better VP (or P for that matter), but is there any precedent for a VP stepping down other than Spiro?
Comment by Jim Henley —
February 28, 2006 @ 7:40 am
Michael: Not really. Sure is precdent for *rumors* of veeps stepping down though. I could swear pretty much every two-term presidency in my lifetime (GWB, Clinton, Reagan) has spawned them.
Comment by Barry —
February 28, 2006 @ 2:01 pm
We’ve never seen it before, barring impeachment-level problems[1], and that was with vice presidents who probably didn’t regularly beat the president for sh*ts and giggles.
Barry
[1] And that was before ’impeachment-level offenses’ was redefined upwards to something beyond high treason.
Comment by Alex F —
February 28, 2006 @ 3:55 pm
I really can’t recall any rumors that either Gore or GHWB were going to resign, although both were targets of investigations during their 2nd VP terms. Since it was obvious to everybody that they were running for the big job, they obviously weren’t going to quit. Cheney won’t either, just because he’s too stubborn and self-righteous. I’d be willing to wager that when Cheney heard the guy he shot apologizing to him, he never for a moment considered it odd.
I always wondered about things like those anti-invasion articles Scowcroft wrote before the Iraq product launch. The media sagely said Scowcroft was trying to ’send a message’ to Dubya. This was GHWB’s right hand guy - did he have no way to reach the kid except the NYT Op Ed page?
An interesting question that I suppose we’ll learn the answer to some day: does Dubya even take Mom and Dad’s phone calls? When he does, does he say anything beyond, ”I’m awfully busy today. Call back in 2009.” before returning to his game of video solitaire?
Comment by the talking dog —
February 28, 2006 @ 4:05 pm
Assuming you accept this source as true, it appears that James A. Baker III might have a slight personal problem with Cheney, seeing as the Veep shot his brother in law Harry. Junior… well, he’s family. But there may be a feeling that Dick has been interloping long enough, and Dick’s conduct may well have been asking more than just Harry to take a bullet for him in this case.
BTW, I disagree strongly with those who feel that the small matter of Dick’s possible indictment for obstruction of justice or other charges out of Plame-gate as part of the combined possible defenses of either Rove or Libby matter: they don’t. FUDD-GATE matters. And for that, Cheney may well be stepping down… for health reasons you understand.
Still not how you bet, of course.
Comment by Barry —
February 28, 2006 @ 9:30 pm
Alex F: ”I’d be willing to wager that when Cheney heard the guy he shot apologizing to him, he never for a moment considered it odd.”
Probably not; he just made a note that the ’nurse’ that they infiltrated into the hospital (to have a midnight chat) was worth every penny.
As for not being able to get word privately to Bush, remember both that Junior is now King of the World, and that Cheney would have a strong interest in dominating Junior’s channels of information.
Comment by Gary Farber —
March 1, 2006 @ 1:42 pm
”I assume the younger Bush’s disdain for his father’s retainers is some oedipal thing.”
I don’t know what to make of it, but I think it may be important to recall that 43 played a large role in the 1992 41 campaign, and earlier played a role that brought him into contact with Dad’s hirelings, so there’s personal experience to be brought into the equation, not just the direct father-son relationship.
”The media sagely said Scowcroft was trying to ’send a message’ to Dubya. This was GHWB’s right hand guy - did he have no way to reach the kid except the NYT Op Ed page?”
Pretty much, pretty clearly, given 41’s quite authoritatively reported reluctance to step into direct suggestions to 43; that 43 would feel that way seems utterly consistent with his personality, and I see no reason to doubt the extremely extensive reporting on this issue, in which endless numbers of people in a position to know have testified to the dynamic, and not a single person in said situation has even hinted at the possibility that it has been otherwise. Sometimes the conventional wisdom is what it is because it’s true.
As the Talking Dog can testify, by the way, when he solicited predictions for when Cheney would be stepping down, I said somewhere between February-May, 2007. Nice to see that Insight agrees. (Though I’d still put the odds of it happening at all only at maybe 52%-48.)