“Most Capitol Hill observers now regard Frist as ‘the weakest majority leader in perhaps 50 years,’” said Charles Cook, the editor of a nonpartisan political report, in an interview with Bloomberg News. Cook, who has one of the best records for predicting political contests, said he did not think that Frist “has a snowball’s chance in hell” of getting the GOP nomination. If Frist’s standing with his peers suffered, he also damaged his image as a clear-thinking man of medicine when he pandered to the religious right during the debate over Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman being kept alive by a feeding tube in a Florida hospital. After viewing videos prepared by a group supporting federal intervention to halt the withdrawal of life-support measures, Frist reported—as Dr. Frist—that Terri Schiavo was “not somebody in a persistent vegetative state.” Both the House and Senate passed a law granting a federal court jurisdiction in the case, and President Bush flew back to Washington to sign the emergency measure. The federal judge, however, agreed with the state judges who had reviewed, and rereviewed, all the expert testimony, and had refused to intervene. The court battle to keep Schiavo on life support eventually ended with her death, and an autopsy showed that she had been blind and that her brain had atrophied severely. Dr. Frist’s behavior in the incident was quite remarkable, given the simple message he had delivered to the Senate in his maiden speech on January 11, 1995, when he first came to Washington. “As a recently elected citizen-legislator, I carry a very distinct advantage: closeness to the people,” Frist explained. He had listened to people’s thoughts and concerns, and he shared them with his colleagues: “Get the federal government off our backs…. The arrogance of Washington is stifling us, and we are capable of making our own decisions.”[68]
Dick Cheney is the most powerful vice president in American history. His power comes from his knowledge of how Washington really works, and it far exceeds that of the man he ostensibly works for. Unlike Bush, Cheney relishes the minutiae of government policy and process, and he has surrounded himself with a staff that is stronger and far more competent than the president’s personal staff. Unlike prior vice presidents, Cheney and his people have often taken the lead on issues, with the White House staff falling in line. Cheney has long been a behind-the-scenes operator, for he was badly burned by the news media during his tenure as White House chief of staff. His ego does not need the spotlight, and his dark view of the world and life is, in any case, better suited to working behind closed doors.
Notwithstanding Cheney’s claims that the powers of the presidency are insufficient to fight terrorism, the office has enormous inherent powers. And when it does not, the president traditionally goes to Congress to petition for whatever additional power is needed; no Congress is going to deny any president essential powers to protect the nation. Cheney, it seems, had been traumatized as Ford’s chief of staff when the Congress began dismantling Nixon’s imperial presidency. “In the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate,” Cheney told the Wall Street Journal, “there was a concerted effort to place limits and restrictions on presidential authority…the decisions that were aimed at the time at trying to avoid a repeat of things like Vietnam or…Watergate.” For most people adopting such measures would be considered good government; Cheney believes otherwise. “I thought they were misguided then, and have believed that given the world that we live in, that the president needs to have unimpaired executive authority.”[69] He has repeated that line time after time, without ever explaining exactly why the post-Watergate measures were misguided, or why efforts by Congress to prevent another Vietnam, which took some fifty thousand American lives for no good purpose, were faulty. Since Cheney has been vice president he has never been interviewed by a reporter inclined (or permitted) to ask the hard questions, so Cheney has never had to explain himself. The man he works for looks only at the politics of any given matter, and does not have the depth of knowledge to challenge his vice president. Cheney’s relationships with his staff and his informal advisers in and out of government are ones in which the vice president poses the questions, and he is never required to give answers. When Cheney speaks publicly—which is not often—he pontificates, or dictates.
It is true that Dick Cheney has served at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. He held positions in both the Nixon (and got out before Watergate) and Ford White Houses. He spent over a decade on Capitol Hill, first as a congressional aide, and later as a congressman from Wyoming who worked his way up the House GOP leadership ladder, before being named to a cabinet post, as Secretary of Defense (under Bush I). It is an exceptional government career. Cheney did not become the youngest White House chief of staff by accident; he did not become the number-two leader of the House Republicans because of his mild manner; and he did not serve as both chairman of the board and chief operating officer of the Halliburton Corporation because of his good looks. Cheney is an authoritarian dominator. He studies the landscape, and then figures out how to get the ground he wants for himself. He has demonstrated remarkable ability in making it to the top, most recently by selecting himself as vice president of the United States. What is always overlooked with Dick Cheney is how he performs when he arrives in his various jobs. The answer is, in truth, not very well. Cheney is surely proof of the “Peter Principle” (that people in a hierarchy eventually rise to their level of incompetence).
Josh Marshall,[*] writing in the Washington Monthly, was the first journalist to observe this fact about Cheney; the piece was titled “Vice Grip: Dick Cheney is a man of principles. Disastrous Principles.”[70] Marshall had discovered that Cheney has made one serious mistake after another as vice president, although “in the Washington collective mind,” he has the reputation of a “sober, reliable, skilled inside player.” Marshall found that the facts belie Cheney’s reputation, and he has made a consistent string of “mistakes—on energy policy, homeland security, corporate reform.” Since Marshall wrote his piece this list of serious errors has only grown. Marshall attributed Cheney’s ineptness to a career that has largely isolated him from the real world. As Marshall described it, Cheney is part of the “hierarchical, old economy style of management [that] couldn’t be more different from the loose, nonhierarchical style of, say, high-tech corporations or the Clinton White House, with all their open debate, concern with the interests of ‘stake-holders,’ manic focus on pleasing customers (or voters), and constant reassessment of plans and principles. The latter style, while often sloppy and seemingly juvenile, tends to produce pretty smart policy. The former style, while appearing so adult and competent, often produces stupid policy.” Marshall is also describing the distinction between a nonauthoritarian White House and an authoritarian operation.
An examination of Cheney’s career reveals that it is marked by upward mobility and downward performance. For example, the best thing Cheney did for Halliburton as chairman and CEO was to step down and help them get no-bid contracts to rebuild Iraq and federal help with their asbestos claims liability; Cheney’s attempt to run for president failed at the conception stage; he was undistinguished as Secretary of Defense, and many believe he was actually disappointed when the cold war ended on his watch, and not by his doing; his years in Congress have left a voting record that any fair-minded person would be ashamed of; and he was way over his head as Ford’s chief of staff, which resulted in the remaining Nixon staff’s appreciating how good Haldeman had been in the job; and, of course, he helped Ford lose his bid to become an elected president in the race against Jimmy Carter.
69.
James Taranto, “The Weekend Interview with Dick Cheney,”
*
Josh Marshall, as anyone who follows the better blogs knows, today runs the growing and always insightful (regardless of one’s political point of view) Talking Points Memo and TPM Café blogs at htttp://www.talkingpointsmemo. com/.