Counter-Intuitive

9 March 2007



Cheney Needs to Serve out His Term

The former chief of staff of America’s vice president is now a convicted felon. I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby faces a couple decades in the slammer and a million bucks in fines, but the sense among those Americans paying attention is that he is the fall guy for Vice President Cheney. Hopeful speculation in Washington suggests the Veep is going to resign soon for “health” reasons. Oddly, for the good of the Republican Party and of the nation, Dick Cheney needs to remain in office until January 2009 when his term expires.

This journal believes that Mr. Cheney is the most dangerous vice president in US history. He has used his office and influence to undermine the constitution and the foundations of American society. In addition, there’s a pretty good case that he is a war criminal in the Nuremberg sense of the term. Finally, a good attorney could beat that rap one the grounds that the vice president is delusional; any of his statements about Iraq over the last six years suggest his grip on reality is tenuous at best. In short, he's bad news.

However, were he to resign or be removed by impeachment, the US would be in the market for a new second-in-command. This would allow George “LBJ” Bush to anoint a successor within the GOP, something the party desperately needs to avoid. The Republicans are at a crossroads, whether they will be a big government, national security party, or an evangelical moral authoritarian faction, or whether they will be a libertarian, small government party. The current pack of presidential candidates in the party offers a chance to address these issues openly and candidly – nothing better could happen to the party (and that would be good for the country, too). However, if Mr. Bush could select someone to be his new Veep, that person would have the inside track on the nomination, and indeed, the healthy debate would be cancelled.

Worse, to get the new vice president confirmed, the US Senate, controlled by the Democrats, would have to vote on a presidential nominee. Until that happens, the constitution says that, without a vice president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would succeed if Mr. Bush were impeached and convicted, resigned or passed away. The risk of a constitutional deadlock is obvious, and it would almost certainly have both parties in the trenches for months. This would hardly be healthy.

Of course, there is a risk to keeping Mr. Cheney around. He is the last neo-con standing in the administration, and he is the most driven of the president’s advisors. He may well manipulate the country into a shooting-war with Iran as he did with Iraq. The risk assessment is tricky, but there is a fair chance that armed conflict with Iran is not inevitable. Were Mr. Cheney to resign, a constitutional impasse (if not a crisis) would be inevitable. There are 683 more days in Mr. Cheney’s term, and this journal thinks the nation can and should run out the clock.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.


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