Usually, when the Bush Administration has to do a big push, one of the first things they do is disconnect Cheney from his life support system in The Bunker and begin trotting him around so he can prove that: A.) He’s not dead. B.) That this new policy of the Administration is one of the most important things to ever happen to America (In his opinion.). Yet, nary a peep out of him, as far as I can tell, on the whole surge business. Did he choke on a cheeseburger, and the Administration is waiting for an opportune moment to announce this (meanwhile his corpse is kept on ice until the right moment arrives)? Or are they having trouble finding virgins with the same blood type as him in order to give him the transfusion he needs to appear human?
I put this in IMHO, because I don’t think that anyone will be able to come up with a factual answer to the question.
If Bush is a lame duck in office, that has to make Cheney a dead duck - and considering Cheney has said he has no intention of ever running for public office again, he has probably gone off into the sunset already.
On Thursday, he spoke in front of the Virginia General Assembly, and presented the Speaker of the House of Delagates and the President of the Senate with a set of coins commemorating the 400th anniversary of Jamestown.
“–the oldest permanent colony in America, whose survival was guaranteed, as we all know from history books, by a last-minute surge of colonists to defeat the local Algonquin insurgents. I think there’s a lesson there for all of us.”
(stumbles, accidentally shoots President of the Senate in face)
I’m finding the obsession with Cheney a little silly. He’s Vice-President. His main job is just not to die. Granted, in keeping with the theme of incompetence, Cheney is not particularly well qualified for that job, but there really isn’t any necessary reason the Vice President HAS to be trotted out to defend or talk about anything. It’s not like the nation was screaming out for more Al Gore during Clinton’s Presidency either.
No link, but I remember a NYTimes article a year or two ago that essentially said that Cheney had pissed off so many people on the Hill that it was detrimental to send him to drum up support for a bill.
Normally, that’s true - although the VP job description usually includes proposing unpopular ideas - but even non-Cheney haters would have to agree he’s perhaps the most powerful or influential VP in the history of the country, policy-wise. He’s not exactly John Adams, complaining about how “insignificant” his job is.