David Nason, New York correspondent
WHEN US Vice-President Dick Cheney fired a shotgun into the face of
his buddy Harry Whittington on a hunting trip earlier this year, The
New York Post carried a banner headline that read: "Cheney's got a gun".
The headline explained how the quail shoot had gone wrong, and captured
the sense of foreboding Cheney has always brought to US politics.
Even the revelatory tone seemed to speak to the excessive
secrecy that is a Cheney hallmark - and which was evident in the
attempted cover-up of Whittington's near-death experience.
The shooting was back in February, when Cheney's immense influence over the White House was at its peak.
It was a time when the Iraq policy he had conceived with defence
secretary and lifelong pal Donald Rumsfeld - the policy that has come
to define the careers of both men - was holding up well enough for the
Bush administration to be contemplating troop reductions.
At the White House, Cheney's personal influence was amplified by his
oversight of the cabinet process, a role that gave him a say in every
area of government policy.
Cheney even had the authority to classify documents, something none
of his predecessors could do. In short, Cheney made himself the most
powerful vice-president in US history.
How things have changed. As the dust clears on the mid-term
elections, Rumsfeld is gone, the Iraq strategy is in tatters, the
Democrats control both houses of Congress and the once impregnable
Cheney has been left isolated and discredited.
Rumsfeld's dumping aside - a move Cheney vigorously opposed -
nothing indicated the sidelining of the Vice-President more than George
W. Bush's White House meeting last week with senior house Democrat
leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer. Cheney was present, but when Bush
spoke of the significance of the talks, he forgot to acknowledge the
Vice-President's involvement.
"All three of us recognise the importance of working together to get
things done," Bush told reporters. It was a slip, but a Freudian one.
If Cheney quits, Bush could appoint in his place one of the contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.
Previously, Mitt Romney and George Pataki, the retiring governors of
Massachusetts and New York respectively, have been mentioned as
possible replacements in the event of a Cheney resignation. So has
George Allen, the ambitious but now defeated senator from Virginia, and
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
But what if Bush were to ask one of the Republican frontrunners,
either John McCain or Rudy Giuliani, to take the job? Would they accept
on the basis that the vice-presidency is the best place from which to
launch a presidential run, or would they decline for fear of being
tainted by the Bush legacy?
And if Bush were turned down, would he go for someone who is certain
to accept - perhaps his young brother Jeb, the Governor of Florida,
whose term expires in January? Bush has already said his brother would
make a "great president", so why not a vice-president?
The possibilities are many, and the impact on the 2008 presidential
race could be profound, but in the end it all rides on what Cheney
decides to do. At this stage he seems intent on staying put for the
report by the Iraq Study Group chaired by former secretary of state
James Baker.
One thing is for sure: talk of the 2008 US presidential race being a
contest without a vice-president among the candidates is way premature. The Australian
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