VicePresident.US: Lying in wait

EVERY COMEDIAN in America has been having a gag-fest at the expense of Vice President Dick Cheney, who accidentally shot his 78-year-old "acquaintance," Harry Whittington, while hunting quail in Texas. In the face.

"Thank you, Jesus," whispered Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show." I have no doubt that in the course of his long and successful life as an attorney and businessman in Austin, Texas, Whittington has brought happiness to many people. But never can he have brought as much happiness as he did last week by getting shot by the vice president.

Hunting trips occasionally change the course of history. Trotsky's decision to go duck shooting instead of attending Lenin's funeral gave Stalin the perfect opportunity to begin his political marginalization. Cheney's trip to the Armstrong Ranch has had the opposite effect. Far from marginalizing the vice president, it has brought him center stage — his least-favorite location.

At some point, when the history books get written, the question will have to be asked: Was George W. Bush the 43rd president of the United States, or was it actually Dick Cheney? The official line — conveyed in Bob Woodward's books "Bush at War" and "Plan of Attack" — is that Cheney is no more than the president's self-effacing, loyal and trusty servant. Even in private, he deferentially calls Bush "Mr. President." Yet you have to wonder if this is not the veep's idea of irony.

Consider for a moment the vice president's vastly greater experience with Washington politics. Since being promoted by President Ford from deputy secretary of Defense to White House chief of staff at the tender age of 34, Cheney has lived and breathed the stale air of the corridors of power. He was already secretary of Defense when President Bush's father went to war against Iraq in 1991. It's no wonder he's Bush's No. 1 consigliere. "I see Dick all the time," Bush has said.

Now consider the key events of the Bush presidency. Each one of them bears Cheney's unmistakable imprint. For a start, it was Cheney who, as president of the Senate, used all his Beltway savvy to push through Bush's first big tax cut in 2001. And no one pressed harder than Cheney for widening the war on terror to include Saddam Hussein.

Sure, on one occasion Bush rejected his advice. That was when Cheney argued against trying to get a second U.N. Security Council resolution before invading. But this is the exception that proves the rule.

It was Cheney who, on Aug. 26, 2002, started the drumroll for war with a speech dismissing the effectiveness of U.N. weapons inspectors and flatly stating: "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction [and] … that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us." This, he insisted, was "as great a threat as can be imagined" — note that word "imagined."

It also was Cheney who asserted that there were links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, insisting: "We've got to do it because it's the convergence of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction." It was Cheney who flew to the Middle East to square the other Arab states on the eve of the war; Cheney who made sure the Saudis were on the inside track; Cheney who invited the Iraqi opposition leaders to the White House.

"Cheney was beyond hellbent for action against Saddam," writes Woodward, almost certainly paraphrasing Colin Powell. "It was as if nothing else existed." If anyone had war "fever" in 2003, according to Powell, it was Cheney.

Yet it also was Cheney who argued that "we need to have a light hand [in Iraq] in the postwar phase." It was Cheney who reassured senators: "I think we'll be greeted as liberators." And no prizes for guessing which member of the administration has been most intransigent in the face of demands that the United States renounce torture.

Man was born free, wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but he is everywhere in chains. George W. Bush was born freer than most. But he is everywhere in Cheney.

Finally, and perhaps crucially, it is Cheney's former chief of staff, "Scooter" Libby, who is facing charges of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice in the case arising from the exposure of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. The leak apparently was designed to discredit her husband after he publicly rubbished claims that Hussein had tried to acquire uranium from Niger. Now I wonder whose idea that might have been?

At the end of the interview he gave Wednesday, Cheney was asked if, as vice president, he had the authority to declassify information. Cheney: "There is an executive order to that effect." Interviewer: "There is?" Cheney: "Yes." Interviewer: "Have you done it?" Cheney: "Well, I've certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions." Interviewer: "You ever done it unilaterally?" Cheney: "I don't want to get into that."

This exchange raises the question: What's the difference between "Scooter" Libby and Harry Whittington? Answer: Cheney shot Whittington in the face, not the back.