Salon/Conason: Dick Cheney's Glass House

As Bush's hatchet man, he's carving up John Kerry as soft on al-Qaida -- and making his own history of ignoring terror threats and cutting defense programs fair game.

Emerging from the security of his undisclosed location onto the electoral battlefield, with hatchet in hand, Dick Cheney appears eager to prove his mettle as the president's designated executioner. Whatever he may lack in physical energy for this unpleasant task, he will compensate with experience and zeal. But as White House political strategists and speechwriters cheer him on, they may ask the same question that occurs to other observers: Is Cheney an asset or a liability in this campaign?

(snip)

Although Cheney doesn't exude charm, his declining stature is not merely an image problem. He never embraced "compassionate conservatism," perhaps because few would believe him if he did. Instead, he has come to represent everything that Americans like least about the Bush administration, from right-wing rigidity to corporate profiteering to serial prevarication. His powerful office is the nexus of suspicion in the Halliburton contract scandal, the faked Niger uranium story, the Valerie Plame leak, the Energy Task Force coverup, the 9/11 investigation, and the distortion of Iraq intelligence.

In recent months, speculation that the vice president will be dropped from the Republican ticket at next September's convention has intensified. President Bush assures supporters that he has no plans to dump Cheney, and he probably doesn't. The president's repeated endorsements haven't quelled the critical rumbling from Cheney's old colleagues in the first Bush administration, or the tantalizing rumor that Rudolph Giuliani is waiting to take his place.

A prominent Washington conservative says such scenarios are mere fantasy. "If they were going to get rid of him, they would have started to prepare the public and the press with little leaks about his heart condition. Anyway, it's too late for another reason -- because if they dump him at the convention, they will look as if they're admitting that the attacks on him and the administration are substantively true. They would be confirming their critics. And to be honest, it's hard to imagine how they would function without him in a second term."

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http://salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/03/20/cheney/index.html

just before the vote and then drop out suddenly due to a (faked) medical condition.

b*sh will have to substitute and it will look like last minute and they'll play the pity factor and win. That can't and won't happen, right?

I'm not sure I'll have much pity for Cheney as he clutches his chest and falls to the ground. Then again, I've been warned not to think such thoughts.

Seriously, I don't think pity will have much impact if Cheney were to drop out because of health problems. The choice of new VP candidate would be much more significant.

after him. I'm starting to think Kerry needs a VP partner, sooner
rather than later, to return fire on Cheney.