The view from Planet Cheney

[mwb970]

(by John Whiteside, from the blog Blue Bayou, Feb. 24, 2007)

The British move is bad news for Bush, and Cheney's spin attempt sounds at best desperate. Meanwhile, after John McCain commented that he thought Donald Rumsfeld was one of the worst secretaries of defense in American history - an opinion widely help in Washington, in the armed forces, and around the country - Cheney said that McCain should apologize. Which is only good for McCain; with the administration in lame duck mode, Republican presidential contenders have no particular stake in covering for its failures, and Cheney's just drawing more attention to them.

It is funny, though, to hear the vice president who dropped the F-bomb on the floor of the Senate playing Miss Manners. But who knows, maybe McCain is just waiting for an apology for the horrifying smear job that the Bush campaign pulled on him in South Carolina in 2000.

When not instructing his fellows in the finer points of genteel political discussion, however, Cheney can be found repeating an old theme: if you don't support the administration, you're helping the terrorists. This is closely related to the administration's "Vote for us, or you will be blown up" theme that stopped working in the last election.

In the age of electronic communications, sending Cheney halfway around the world to Australia isn't enough to get him out of the news for a while - which is too bad for the Bush administration, as the VP becomes ever more of a political liability. Unfortunately (for the administration and for the country), nothing we're hearing from Cheney is exactly out of the ordinary - it's just less politically useful these days. And so for Bush, Cheney is a bit like the crazy uncle who used to entertain the dinner guests but now is a bit of an embarrassment. Well, only 696 days to go.


More at....
http://blogs.chron.com/bluebayou/2007/02/the_view_from_planet_cheney.html

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