# Was Bush a figurehead for Cheney?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [April 9, 2010, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580 "2010-04-09T21:28:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2010, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/1 "2010-04-09T21:28:14Z")
> [@](#):
>
> by shiftless
>
> Bush got through 8 years as a figurehead for Cheney…
This little snipet is from the discussion on what if Palin becomes president, but it got me thinking. Is it true?
Was George W. Bush a figurehead for Cheney? How much of the decision-making was Bush’s and how much was Cheney’s? Was Cheney just a close adviser, or was he really calling the shots?
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2010, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/2 "2010-04-09T21:43:45Z")
Didn’t have to be Cheney.
Coulda been a figurehead for Rove. Coulda been a figurehead for the Stonecutters, with Cheney there to keep him from getting _too_ independent.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/3 "2010-04-09T21:46:01Z")
I doubt that George “I’m the decider” Bush would have been content to be just a figurehead, so I’m guessing No. Whether he was unduly influenced by Cheney, on the other hand… Well, I’ve often wondered how different a George W. Bush presidency would have been with a different Vice President. (For instance, what if Cheney had been out of the picture and Colin Powell had been VP?)
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/4 "2010-04-09T21:46:45Z")
It all goes back to the Illuminati, or possibly Big Pharma.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2010, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/5 "2010-04-09T21:53:37Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#):
>
> I doubt that George “I’m the decider” Bush would have been content to be just a figurehead, so I’m guessing No. Whether he was unduly influenced by Cheney, on the other hand… Well, I’ve often wondered how different a George W. Bush presidency would have been with a different Vice President. (For instance, what if Cheney had been out of the picture and Colin Powell had been VP?)
Well, puppets rarely know they are puppets (there are exceptions with a literal puppet government and those leaders know who the real bosses are).
If Bush thought he was a puppet I think he’d fight it.
But then Bush was not a terribly bright guy and if he bothered to think about it his “bright” ideas were ones Cheney/Rove wanted. In short they manipulated him with relative ease.
IMHO
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### Author:  [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2010, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/6 "2010-04-09T21:59:07Z")
There’s a book out I think that show how Cheney manipulated Bush in some ways, like who to pick for appointments, but I’m not convinced he or Rove were the ones really in power. For one thing it came to light how Cheney could not get Bush to pardon Scooter Libby no matter how hard he tried.
I think basically it was that there were a bunch of like-minded people; Bush, Cheney, Rove, and some others, and Rove and Cheney occasionally manipulated Bush, but overall Bush was doing what he wanted to do and of his own free will.
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### Author:  [@Oldeb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oldeb)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2010, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/7 "2010-04-10T00:03:24Z")
Cheney had a lot of influence on Bush. Libby’s non-pardon was big because it was one of the few times Cheney couldn’t get Bush to do what he wanted. According to the Time Magazine, Cheney was almost a caricature of the evil advisor.
> [@Time Magazine](#):
>
> Cheney had an uncanny ability to guide Bush’s decisions. Even as he claimed expansive Executive powers for the President, Cheney salted the bureaucracy with allies who could alert him in advance about policy disagreements, help him influence internal debates at key moments and give him a leg up in framing issues for the President.
>
> He was always deferential to Bush, often waiting with head down and hands clasped behind his back to address the President. Both by habit and by design, he cultivated a relationship that suited Bush’s view of their roles: the President as the “decider” and Cheney as the éminence grise who counseled him.
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> In reality, by wiring the bureaucracy and being the last person Bush spoke with on many key decisions, Cheney became a “sounding board for advice he originated himself,”
Full article: [http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1912297-1,00.html](http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1912297-1,00.html)
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2010, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/8 "2010-04-10T00:07:39Z")
Cheney (and Rumsfeld) had enormous influence over Bush in his first term. In the second term, Condi won out over those two and Cheney’s influence was diminished significantly.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2010, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/9 "2010-04-10T00:22:02Z")
I doubt the “figurehead” stuff, but if Bush was as aggressively incurious as frequently described, I’d say his various underlings would quickly learn what information to give him and what information to withhold to get him to “decide” the way they wanted, expecting he wouldn’t ask a whole lot of questions about the details.
Those underlings that couldn’t get what they wanted (and/or realized there wasn’t any argument they could give that would make Bush support what they thought were reasonable courses of action) resigned. At least I hope that’s why they resigned… y’know… ethics and all.
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### Author:  [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2010, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/10 "2010-04-10T00:24:56Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Cheney (and Rumsfeld) had enormous influence over Bush in his first term. In the second term, Condi won out over those two and Cheney’s influence was diminished significantly.
I think that’s about the size of it. I really got the sense in his second term that Bush was trying to assert his independence from Cheney.
Of course, by then a lot of the damage was done.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2010, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/11 "2010-04-10T01:45:15Z")
I think Bush surrounded himself with people who would tell him what he wanted to hear. Cheney was one of those people. It made Bush’s life easier because he didn’t have to deliberate over opposing views. And with Bush and Cheney being in fundamental agreement on the issues, Bush had no reason not to let Cheney run loose. Cheney got things done that Bush wanted done but didn’t want to put the effort into doing.
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/12 "2010-04-10T03:42:56Z")
No, I don’t think he was a figurehead. From what I read, in the various meetings and things during his term he pretty much made it clear he was in charge. That said, he seemed to purposely surround himself with people who were telling him what he obviously wanted to hear, and in that kind of environment, it would have been fairly easy to manipulate him using his own prejudices and preconceptions. But I doubt Chaney was some kind of puppet master as has been portrayed. Were I to guess, I’d say there were several shifting alliances in his inner circle who probably were on the same page in using his blindness to manipulate him in directions they wanted him to go in.
-XT
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2010, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/13 "2010-04-10T05:12:53Z")
GWB may have had a “high IQ” as that’s measured, certainly had a big ego, and supposedly had excellent people skills. The problems were his short attention span and lack of intellectual curiosity. He not only seemed to lack “vision”, but even disparaged the idea that a President _should_ have vision.
_The Price of Loyalty_ by Ron Suskind is a **must-read**. It looks at Bush’s decision-making through the eyes of GWB’s first Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil. A detailed look at the White House meeting to agree on a tax cut is particularly startling: the only one present to dare object to the tax cut, in a vague half-witted way, was GWB himself, and he was quickly shot down by Cheney and Rove who appear dominant.
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#):
>
> … I’ve often wondered how different a George W. Bush presidency would have been with a different Vice President. (For instance, what if Cheney had been out of the picture and Colin Powell had been VP?)
Cheney was a _big_ mistake and someone like Powell would have been _much_ better. But the “take away” lesson should be to select Presidents who have intellectual curiosity and, yes, “vision.”
> [@xtisme](#):
>
> No, I don’t think he was a figurehead. From what I read, in the various meetings and things during his term he pretty much made it clear he was in charge. That said, he seemed to purposely surround himself with people who were telling him what he obviously wanted to hear, and in that kind of environment, it would have been fairly easy to manipulate him using his own prejudices and preconceptions. But I doubt Chaney was some kind of puppet master as has been portrayed…
I partly agree with this comment, but it seems to presuppose that GWB had a “political philosophy” that agreed with Cheney’s. The problem was that GWB had little or no real philosophy at all, political or otherwise.
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### Author:  [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2010, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/14 "2010-04-10T05:17:01Z")
Bush was very easily manipulated in his first term by Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rove. It was utterly pathetic. By the time it became apparent to even W that the three mice ruined Valerie Plame’s multi-billion dollar non-proliferation intelligence operation for mere spite he no longer trusted them. But he was still a self-centered incompetent fool.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2010, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/15 "2010-04-10T07:13:19Z")
I don’t see why people need to believe that Bush was fronting for people like Cheney and Rove and Rumsfeld. I think it’s more likely that they were fronting for him. They didn’t need to push him to do anything. He chose them because they wanted the same things he wanted.
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### Author:  [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2010, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/16 "2010-04-10T07:19:26Z")
Into the second term, Bush and Cheney had a growing number of disagreements. Ultimately, one of them was President and one of them was not.
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### Author:  [@enomaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enomaj)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/17 "2010-04-10T14:07:55Z")
Bush’s first clue should have been when Cheney pretended to search for a VP and selected himself instead of just saying he would like the job at the outset.
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### Author:  [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/18 "2010-04-10T15:41:23Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#):
>
> But then Bush was not a terribly bright guy…
He got a Harvard MBA. Harvard doesn’t give those out to dunces. You have to be pretty bright to get one. That said, I never liked the guy much, and disagreed w/ most of his policies. As someone else said downthread from the post I’m responding to, he never had much of any philosophy. I would have labeled it principles, but philosophy amounts to the same thing in this context. That is really what people were pointing to when they said he wasn’t “bright”.
ETA Someone w/o a philosophy or principles is rather easy to manipulate, so in that sense, Cheney, et. al. probably had more influence over policy than was wise.
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### Author:  [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2010, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/19 "2010-04-10T18:17:37Z")
I get the feeling that in the beginning Bush was in over his head and so deferred to his dads circle on most of the major topics, so yes in the beginning he was a Cheney-Rumsfeld puppet. But later in his presidency I became convinced he got increasing uncomfortable with the direction they wanted this country to go in and struck back. I think he matured a lot, but the presidency is not the place to be immature even at the start.
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### Author:  [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-a-figurehead-for-cheney/535580/20 "2010-04-10T18:27:49Z")
Part of the reason some people don’t see Bush as very bright is because he was a horrible public speaker and would make Gaffes worthy of Dan Quayle.
As for being a figurehead or not, I didn’t realize that he and Cheney disagreed more and more as time went on. I still wouldn’t call him a figurehead in the beginning, or any time during his presidency, but I think that occasionally manipulated is pretty accurate.
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