The Other President
Dick Cheney, backseat driver par excellence.
IN MOST presidential re-election campaigns people don't spare a second thought for the vice-presidential candidate. Nobody voted to re-elect Ronald Reagan because he had George Bush senior on the ticket, or Bill Clinton because he had Al Gore. But this year Americans ought to spare more than a second thought for the man who stepped onto the stage in Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night.
Dick Cheney growled out a speech that was reminiscent of General Secretary Andropov on a bad day. The audience loved him anyway. When he spoke of George Bush never seeking “a permission slip to defend the American people”, they burst into chants of “Four more years!”. Nobody expected lofty rhetoric from this particular vice-president. Mr Cheney's talent is not for the theatrics of power, but for the mechanics.
He is not only the most powerful vice-president in American history. He is also the most controversial, a man whose decisions have repeatedly given even loyal Republicans pause. Four more years of George W. means four more years of Bush-Cheney: the closest thing to a co-presidency America has ever seen.
For the past four years the two men have been inseparable. Most vice-presidents have to fight for time with their boss; Mr Cheney sees his several times a day. Most vice-presidents spend their days at state funerals; Mr Cheney, more than anyone else, picked the members of the current administration. Thereafter he helped to shape the administration's policies on everything from energy policy to the invasion of Iraq.
The Republicans have repeatedly reminded Americans this week that September 11th 2001 defined this administration. But who was in charge on that terrible day? It was Mr Cheney who took most of the key decisions—from hiding the president to authorising the shooting-down of suspicious aircraft—while Mr Bush was holed up in Nebraska.
September 11th was a break from Mr Cheney's normal low-key style. In general, he prefers to direct from behind rather than seize the wheel. From the first, he exploited his boss's penchant for focusing on the big picture in order to control the details. He packed the second tier of the administration with allies such as Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Luti and Stephen Hadley. And he created an axis of influence with Donald Rumsfeld, the man who had given him his first break in national politics, and who shares his no-nonsense view of the world.
Mr Cheney's acceptance speech at last put paid to lively rumours that Mr Bush was planning to dump him from the ticket in favour of somebody who appeals more to swing voters: John McCain, for example. Mr Cheney is clearly a drag on the ticket in purely electoral terms: the latest CNN/Gallup poll finds as many Americans disliking him as liking him. But the rumours, in the end, were hot air. Mr Cheney is so integral to the administration that to dump him would be the equivalent of decapitating it.
The vice-president's unique position raises a serious practical question: what happens if he has another serious heart attack? (He has already had four.) It also raises a serious political question: how well has Mr Cheney used the power he has amassed with such Machiavellian cunning?
In 2000 he was widely seen as the conservative movement's answer to Washington's legendary wise men, such as Dean Acheson and George Kennan. Nobody who studied Mr Cheney's biography, from his hard-right voting record in Congress to his patronage of conservative intellectuals (the famous Laffer curve was first sketched on his napkin), could doubt his ideological bent. But he was one of the most experienced politicians in Washington: the youngest White House chief of staff ever, a congressman for Wyoming and defence secretary. He was careful to wrap his conservatism in the mantle of common sense. Who better to restrain Mr Bush's more gung-ho Texan instincts?
Mr Cheney also brought to his job a sharp sense of how dangerous the world is. Thomas Hobbes used to remark that “fear and I were born twins”. The same can be said of Mr Cheney. As a congressman, he boasted that he never met a weapons system he didn't vote for; as defence secretary, he fiercely resisted pressure for a post-cold-war peace dividend. He tried instead to focus America's armed forces on “new sources of instability” such as terrorism and renegade regimes. This combination of a mastery of Washington bureaucracy and a Hobbesian view of the world should have been perfect for the post-September 11th world.
Ideology's dangers
But few people would now argue that Mr Cheney has lived up to his promise as a wise man. The biggest mistakes of this administration, from the blithe acceptance of soaring deficits to the insistence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, have Mr Cheney's fingerprints all over them. He resisted attempts to get both congressional and UN approval for the invasion of Iraq. He has repeatedly favoured secrecy and “executive privilege” over consultation and compromise.
Mr Cheney scored a few points in the administration's defence on Wednesday. He pointed out that the tax cuts had helped to reignite an economy that was sinking into recession. He argued that there was “a difference between leading a coalition of the many and submitting to the objections of a few”. But there are no excuses for swallowing Ahmed Chalabi's “intelligence” hook, line and sinker, nor for trampling over Congress.
The cumulative effect of all these mistakes not only suggests a worrying preference for ideology over common sense, but an arrogant indifference to the checks and balances that are the glory of the American constitution. During the Ford administration, the Secret Service gave Mr Cheney the codename “Backseat”. One of the big questions facing America is whether this particular backseat driver is taking his boss in the right direction.
Sep 2nd 2004
From The Economist print edition
IN MOST presidential re-election campaigns people don't spare a second thought for the vice-presidential candidate. Nobody voted to re-elect Ronald Reagan because he had George Bush senior on the ticket, or Bill Clinton because he had Al Gore. But this year Americans ought to spare more than a second thought for the man who stepped onto the stage in Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night.
Dick Cheney growled out a speech that was reminiscent of General Secretary Andropov on a bad day. The audience loved him anyway. When he spoke of George Bush never seeking “a permission slip to defend the American people”, they burst into chants of “Four more years!”. Nobody expected lofty rhetoric from this particular vice-president. Mr Cheney's talent is not for the theatrics of power, but for the mechanics.
He is not only the most powerful vice-president in American history. He is also the most controversial, a man whose decisions have repeatedly given even loyal Republicans pause. Four more years of George W. means four more years of Bush-Cheney: the closest thing to a co-presidency America has ever seen.
For the past four years the two men have been inseparable. Most vice-presidents have to fight for time with their boss; Mr Cheney sees his several times a day. Most vice-presidents spend their days at state funerals; Mr Cheney, more than anyone else, picked the members of the current administration. Thereafter he helped to shape the administration's policies on everything from energy policy to the invasion of Iraq.
The Republicans have repeatedly reminded Americans this week that September 11th 2001 defined this administration. But who was in charge on that terrible day? It was Mr Cheney who took most of the key decisions—from hiding the president to authorising the shooting-down of suspicious aircraft—while Mr Bush was holed up in Nebraska.
September 11th was a break from Mr Cheney's normal low-key style. In general, he prefers to direct from behind rather than seize the wheel. From the first, he exploited his boss's penchant for focusing on the big picture in order to control the details. He packed the second tier of the administration with allies such as Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Luti and Stephen Hadley. And he created an axis of influence with Donald Rumsfeld, the man who had given him his first break in national politics, and who shares his no-nonsense view of the world.
Mr Cheney's acceptance speech at last put paid to lively rumours that Mr Bush was planning to dump him from the ticket in favour of somebody who appeals more to swing voters: John McCain, for example. Mr Cheney is clearly a drag on the ticket in purely electoral terms: the latest CNN/Gallup poll finds as many Americans disliking him as liking him. But the rumours, in the end, were hot air. Mr Cheney is so integral to the administration that to dump him would be the equivalent of decapitating it.
The vice-president's unique position raises a serious practical question: what happens if he has another serious heart attack? (He has already had four.) It also raises a serious political question: how well has Mr Cheney used the power he has amassed with such Machiavellian cunning?
In 2000 he was widely seen as the conservative movement's answer to Washington's legendary wise men, such as Dean Acheson and George Kennan. Nobody who studied Mr Cheney's biography, from his hard-right voting record in Congress to his patronage of conservative intellectuals (the famous Laffer curve was first sketched on his napkin), could doubt his ideological bent. But he was one of the most experienced politicians in Washington: the youngest White House chief of staff ever, a congressman for Wyoming and defence secretary. He was careful to wrap his conservatism in the mantle of common sense. Who better to restrain Mr Bush's more gung-ho Texan instincts?
Mr Cheney also brought to his job a sharp sense of how dangerous the world is. Thomas Hobbes used to remark that “fear and I were born twins”. The same can be said of Mr Cheney. As a congressman, he boasted that he never met a weapons system he didn't vote for; as defence secretary, he fiercely resisted pressure for a post-cold-war peace dividend. He tried instead to focus America's armed forces on “new sources of instability” such as terrorism and renegade regimes. This combination of a mastery of Washington bureaucracy and a Hobbesian view of the world should have been perfect for the post-September 11th world.
Ideology's dangers
But few people would now argue that Mr Cheney has lived up to his promise as a wise man. The biggest mistakes of this administration, from the blithe acceptance of soaring deficits to the insistence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, have Mr Cheney's fingerprints all over them. He resisted attempts to get both congressional and UN approval for the invasion of Iraq. He has repeatedly favoured secrecy and “executive privilege” over consultation and compromise.
Mr Cheney scored a few points in the administration's defence on Wednesday. He pointed out that the tax cuts had helped to reignite an economy that was sinking into recession. He argued that there was “a difference between leading a coalition of the many and submitting to the objections of a few”. But there are no excuses for swallowing Ahmed Chalabi's “intelligence” hook, line and sinker, nor for trampling over Congress.
The cumulative effect of all these mistakes not only suggests a worrying preference for ideology over common sense, but an arrogant indifference to the checks and balances that are the glory of the American constitution. During the Ford administration, the Secret Service gave Mr Cheney the codename “Backseat”. One of the big questions facing America is whether this particular backseat driver is taking his boss in the right direction.
Sep 2nd 2004
From The Economist print edition
posted by R7 | 9/06/2004 11:58:00 AM
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