With Charm-Boy Edwards On The Ticket, Is Dour Cheney Out?

by Jim Lobe

(IPS) WASHINGTON -- Now that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has chosen Senator John Edwards as his vice-presidential running-mate, the capital's attention has shifted to the fate of Vice President Dick Cheney.

While Cheney's vast Washington and national security experience is far superior to Edwards' mere five years in the U.S. Senate, the latter's unfailingly sunny and optimistic demeanour -- not to mention his Clintonesque skill, finely honed over two decades as a trial lawyer, at connecting with an audience -- will make it difficult for the dour incumbent to prevail in any face-to-face debate.

Cheney's growing image as a "grumpy old man" -- greatly enhanced in recent weeks by his stubborn insistence that there was a real relationship between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda terrorist group and his well-publicised "Go fuck yourself" exchange with a prominent Democrat on the floor of the Senate -- has provoked some veteran Republicans to publicly suggest it may be time for Cheney to depart.

The stakes are enormous if only because the suggested replacements -- including Arizona Sen John McCain, former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani and even national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell -- are either far more politically moderate or lack the bureaucratic and political experience that has given Cheney more power to influence or even determine policy than any other vice president in the last century.

Indeed, many foreign-policy analysts believe that, were it not for Cheney, whose own mainly neo-conservative national security staff rivalled the president's National Security Council (NSC) staff in clout and effectiveness, Washington would not have gone to war in Iraq so soon, if at all.

Cheney, whose famous phrase is, "We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it," has also been blamed for vetoing any serious engagement with North Korea to determine whether a deal could be worked out where the Asian state would dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid and other carrots. A deal, however, seems to be in the works.

Although the war-loving neo-conservatives -- none of whom have worn a uniform -- have seen their influence steadily decline since late last year, Cheney's absence in a second Bush term would make it far more difficult for them to stage a comeback. Indeed, this was precisely the motive behind a discreet effort reportedly launched late last year by some cronies of former president -- the current leader's father -- George H.W. Bush (1989-93) including Brent Scowcroft and James Baker, to persuade the younger Bush to dump Cheney.

But given his failure so far to fire anyone responsible for thedebacle in Iraq, most analysts believe the president will not force Cheney off the ticket, particularly because it would risk alienating much of his core constituency, especially the Christian Right and aggressive nationalists. If even small numbers of these groups stay home on Election Day, Nov. 2, Bush's chances of winning re-election would be significantly eroded.

As a result, much of the public discussion about Cheney's stepping down is now directed at the vice president and his loyalists. The most widely noted to date came in the form of an open letter to Cheney in the 'USA Today' newspaper by James Gannon, editor of the 'Des Moines Register', the biggest newspaper in Iowa, one of nine critical "swing" states where Kerry and Bush are running neck and neck.

"Nobody knows better than you do that you have become a lightning rod for criticism, and a favourite target for your party's political opponents," wrote Gannon, who called himself a "long-time admirer" who had reported on Cheney when he served as former President Gerald Ford's White House chief of staff 30 years ago.

"Fair or not, it is simply too easy to paint Dick Cheney as a tool of the oil industry, a too-eager advocate of war in Iraq and a too-gullible supporter of the now-disgraced Ahmad Chalabi, who fed the Bush administration false intelligence on Iraq. Your former company, Halliburton, is a political albatross around your neck, weighing down not only you but also President Bush," Gannon wrote.

"You must ask yourself now if your continued presence by his side will offer strength or weakness to the Republican ticket in November, and what it will mean for [Republican] prospects in the future," he noted, suggesting McCain and Washington's new United Nations ambassador, John Danforth, as possible substitutes.

Indeed, the poll numbers are particularly unfavorable to Cheney. According to one recent survey by the 'Wall Street Journal', only 17 percent of citizens have a "very positive view" of him, compared to 27 percent whose assessment is "very negative."

In a 'Washington Post' poll last month, 22 percent of respondents rated him favourably, while 31 percent gave him an unfavourable rating. Overall, Cheney's favourability lags 10 to 15 points behind Bush's, which, at around 45 percent, is already below the 50 percent level that presidents have historically needed to get re-elected at this stage of the campaign.

Worse, among self-described Republicans, Cheney's approval rating was only 48 percent in the Post poll, 30 points behind Bush's.

In fact, almost all of the recent news for Cheney has been bad. Not only are Halliburton, which he headed from 1995 to 2000, and its no-bid contracts in Iraq, looking bad under congressional and media scrutiny, but word the vice president might be called as a witness in a major bribery probe in Paris into the company's operations in Nigeria when he was CEO is adding to Republican nervousness.

So are the yet-to-be-announced findings of a special prosecutor, who has questioned two top Cheney officials and the vice president about the unauthorised media disclosure of the identity of a covert CIA officer in connection with controversial allegations surrounding Hussein's alleged attempts to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger.

But it is Cheney's recent behaviour that has fuelled worries about keeping him on the ticket. After the bipartisan commission investigating the Sep. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon declared last month it had found "no credible evidence" of a collaborative relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda, Cheney declared he had "overwhelming evidence" of such a connection that the commission "probably" had not seen.

After the vice president repeatedly ignored public appeals by the Democratic and Republican co-chairs of the commission to turn over any such information, they released a formal statement Tuesday that was clearly intended to embarrass him.

"After examining available transcripts of the vice president's public remarks, the 9/11 commission believes it has access to the same information the vice president has seen regarding contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq prior to the 9/11 attacks," it said.

That the commission's Republican co-chair, former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, is closely tied to the elder Bush added to speculation that the move to dump Cheney remains very much alive.

Shortly after the commission made its initial announcement, Cheney invited CNBC reporter Gloria Borger to interview him in what looked like a windowless bunker about his views on its findings. When she asked whether he still believed that a report -- debunked by the commission -- that the leader of the 9/11 hijackers had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Prague five months before the attack was "pretty well confirmed," Cheney interrupted her twice, insisting, "No, I never said that."

But a trip to the archives found an interview given by Cheney to NBC in December 2001, in which he said the Prague report "[has] been pretty well confirmed." The relevant excerpts from the two interviews became a staple of the popular Comedy Channel's 'The Daily Show' and were featured in newspapers around the country.

It was just a few days later that Sen. Pat Leahy, chatting with Republican colleagues on the Senate floor during a photo session, saw Cheney and stuck out his hand. Cheney refused to reciprocate, complaining about Democratic efforts to tie Halliburton's contracts in Iraq to him.

When Leahy replied that he did not appreciate Republican efforts to question his Catholicism because he opposed a right-wing nominee for a federal judge, Cheney uttered the most famous epithet of the campaign so far and walked away.. "I felt better afterwards," he told Fox News.

So apparently did the Kerry campaign.