The LA Times recommends Bush do something that he will, in all likelihood, not do

The LA times kicks things off with a headline that could guarantee nightmares for its readers: "Bush's third term." Relax kids. Nobody's repealed any congressional amendments.

Anyway, the paper suggests the same thing that several men in uniform did--namely, that Rumsfeld be fired. But then they take things a step further:
Suppose Bush didn't stop there. Suppose he also asked Cheney, his mentor and friend but an even more polarizing figure than Rumsfeld, to step down.

We know the objections. The vice president is not a mere presidential appointee but an elected constitutional officer. In choosing a replacement, Bush might be pressured to predetermine the outcome of the 2008 Republican presidential race by anointing one would-be successor over another. Throwing Cheney overboard would be an implicit repudiation of the excessively hawkish foreign policy with which the vice president, even more than Rumsfeld, has been associated.

Which is why Bush isn't going to do it. The paper makes the wacky suggestion that Bush pick a replacement who doesn't have designs on the 2008 nomination, like Bob Dole. The same Bob Dole who's been doing Viagra commercials? Guys, try again. I'd recommend Liddy Dole. She's been doing a miserable job as RSCC head honchette, but maybe she'd be a good figurehead vice president until 2008, clapping behind Bush at State of the Union Speeches and throwing baseballs. Rumor has it that she wants to retire in 2008 anyway.

Of course, it's all wishful thinking. As Sean Wilentz points out in his evisceration--uh, I mean, analysis--of Bush's administration, Cheney is simply too powerful to simply be tossed by the wayside: "Were Cheney to announce he is stepping down due to health problems, normally a polite pretext for a political removal, one can be reasonably certain it would be because Cheney actually did have grave health problems."

In addition to being the real power in the White House, Cheney knows where all the bodies are buried. Ditto Rummy. This is probably the real reason they haven't been sent packing. Bush is now stuck with them.

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