Cheney's fall from grace is a liability

The list of those who aided and abetted the elevation of George W. Bush to the presidency in 2000 is a long one. But none did more to put Dubya in the Oval Office than Dick Cheney.
Sure, there were others who played starring roles. Karl Rove, the grand strategist, for one. Then there was Katharine Harris (aka Cruella), the Florida secretary of state who read the election laws to Bush's advantage at every turn. And let's not forget the five Republican members of the U.S. Supreme Court who cut off the Florida vote recount that represented Al Gore's only chance of victory.
In the end, however, it was Cheney who made the difference for Bush.
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It's mostly forgotten now but the Bush-Gore contest, especially their debates, threatened to bring on a period of national narcolepsy. Who could stay awake? It was an irritating nerd (Gore) against an unqualified naif (Bush). Television sets went dark across the country. Enter Dick Cheney.
His meeting with Sen. Joseph Lieberman was the only debate in the campaign that produced anything like a clear winner -- Cheney. He was cool, smart, informed, just witty enough, and wise, something missing in both Bush or Gore. He brought enough adult supervision to the Bush campaign to make Dubya credible -- barely. Without Cheney it's hard to imagine Bush winning.
So it's stunning now to realize that Dick Cheney has become a yoke around the neck of the Bush presidency or, if you prefer a Nixonian reference, a cancer on the presidency. Just about every problem facing Bush today can be laid at Cheney's doorstep, from Iraq and the flap over warrantless wiretapping, to the White House's frosty relations with Congress and the Valerie Plame scandal.
Clearly, Bush, who needed Cheney desperately five years ago, would now be better off without him.
The Iraq war is largely a Cheney creation. He was the one who declared in 2002 that there was indisputable evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Within the White House, he was the enabler of the Pentagon-based neoconservatives (Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith) who desperately wanted the war. Cheney even predicted U.S. troops would be greeted "as liberators."
He seems oblivious of evidence to the contrary. With the insurgency growing and casualties mounting among U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians, Cheney insisted recently that the insurgency was "in its final throes." Some throes.
His links to the oil industry, especially to his old employer, Halliburton, reinforce the belief that the Bush administration is too cozy with the oil industry, with its recent obscene profits. Cheney's convening of a secret committee made up heavily of oil executives to shape national energy policy hasn't helped.
The vice president has been a principal peddler of the notion that the congressional action authorizing Bush to attack Iraq gives the president unlimited power to do just about anything else in the name of fighting terrorism -- warrantless wiretapping, holding terror suspects (even an American citizen) indefinitely without charge, even torture. You name it.
Cheney's problems are compounded by his unfortunate demeanor. He comes across as sour, with a gruff, even snarling countenance and a remote secretive style that belies his obligation to conduct the public's business with some transparency. It's not just the public that Cheney stiffs. He treats Congress no less high-handedly. It's one reason Republicans on Capitol Hill are beginning to resist the White House.
Which brings us to the polls. The latest survey has Cheney's favorability rating down to a dismal 18 percent. Richard Nixon, on the eve of his forced resignation, enjoyed rock star popularity compared with Cheney. Bad as it is, it could get worse. The "Scooter" Libby affair is still out there.
Libby, Cheney's ex-chief of staff who's under indictment for perjury and obstruction of justice, reportedly has asserted he was "authorized by superiors" to discuss classified information with reporters, presumably including the fact that Valerie Plame, wife of a critic of the Iraq war, was a CIA operative. Naturally, Cheney tops the list of those suspected "superiors."
Bush might be able to shed the Cheney tarnish had he not made Cheney the most powerful vice president in recent memory, maybe in American history. Indeed, there is a perception in Washington and the country that Cheney rather than Bush runs the country. He's our first imperial vice president.
What it comes down to is this: Bush is a damaged president. Since his term has three years still to run, that's a serious condition for the country. Cheney is a major part of that damage. It's time for him to do the right thing. It's time for him to go.