Posted on 02/26/2005 6:55:39 AM PST by Pokey78
VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY IS adamant about not running for president in 2008. Asked by host Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday if he might change his mind, Cheney answered with a firm no. "I've got my plans laid out," he said. "I'm going to serve this president for the next four years, and then I'm out of here. . . . In 2009, I'll be 68 years old. And I've still got a lot of rivers I'd like to fish and time I'd like to spend with my grandkids, and so this is my last tour. I don't plan to run for anything."
And that wasn't all. Cheney said a primary reason he has influence with Bush is that he has pledged not to run. His ability to serve the president, he said, "depends upon my ability not to have any agenda other than his agenda. I made it clear when I took the job that I had no aspirations to run for president myself, that I wanted to be part of the team. And it's worked very effectively." If he were running, he'd have to worry now "about what the precinct committeeman in Ottumwa, Iowa, is going to think about me in January of '08." Since that's not the case, Cheney said, he's free to "offer my advice based on what's best from the standpoint of the president and his program and what we're trying to achieve now."
As professions of lack of interest in the presidency go, Cheney's is unusually
But there's a larger reason Cheney should seek to succeed Bush. In all likelihood, the 2008 election, like last year's contest, will focus on foreign policy. The war on terror, national security, and the struggle for democracy will probably dominate American politics for a decade or more. Bush's legacy, or at least part of it, will be to have returned these issues to a position of paramount concern for future presidents. And who is best qualified to pursue that agenda as knowledgeably and aggressively as Bush? The answer is the person who helped Bush formulate it, namely Cheney.
There's one other person who has been as important as the vice president in helping the president shape that agenda, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She could be an attractive candidate, but she has shown no interest in running for public office. Rice was once introduced to Arnold Schwarzenegger as "the next governor of California." She declined to run, however, and of course he got the job in 2003. Last year, Rice had the opportunity to run for the U.S. Senate from California. Again, she declined. If she decided to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, she would face the distinct disadvantage of being a first-time candidate.
What about John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Bill Frist, and other Republicans who are thinking about running? They don't come close to Cheney in foreign policy know-how or decision-making experience. That's not to denigrate them. McCain has emphasized foreign and military affairs in his Senate career and is an able spokesman for a Bush-style foreign policy. Giuliani is no slouch on the subject of the terrorist threat. But who would generate the most public confidence as commander in chief? Cheney, for sure. On domestic issues as well--particularly taxes and energy--he can match any of the likely Republican candidates.
The main rap I've heard on Cheney is that he lacks the charisma to get elected. This is nonsense. So what if he can be characterized as Bush without the pizzazz? Cheney has what's far more important--gravitas. He's a man who's taken seriously as a national leader by everyone here and abroad. Voters aren't stupid. They know that gravitas trumps charisma in choosing a president in a foreign policy era.
The other question about Cheney as a presidential candidate is how he gets out of his vow not to run. That's easy. In the final two years of Bush's second term, the president will be a lame duck whose agenda has been exhausted. There will still be foreign policy issues on the table, true. But that will entail the playing out of policies that Bush, with Cheney's help, developed in his first term. So Bush will be in a position to anoint a successor. If
I don't know if Bush, two years from now, will actually want to choose a successor, someone to carry on his policies. It's possible his presidency and his signature issues may have soured by then. But I doubt it. So imagine Bush as a successful president looking to the future after he leaves office and wondering whether his accomplishments will be protected and expanded or reversed. It would be out of character for Bush to leave the selection of his successor to chance or to the whims of presidential primaries. If he says he'd like Cheney to run, my guess is Cheney would be hard-pressed to say no.
<< McCain is our Howard Dean. >>
You sure?
I'da thought he was their other one.
Regarding Harry Truman?
Well said. Notwithstanding the bitter bile in an unnamed previous poster regarding Truman, the Truman presidency was a blessing in disguise, because if Roosevelt had NOT pushed Henry Wallace (an unabashed socialist and quasi-communist) out of the VP slot, America would probably be under the hammer and sickle right now.
Truman had the guts to use the atomic bomb, when others were trying to convince him not to use it. He also chose to make America the FIRST nation to recognize the newly reconstituted State of Israel, in 1948. That is nothing to take lightly. His decision regarding MacArthur was unfortunate, however as President, Truman knew something that MacArthur did not - that at the time MacArthur was pushing to invade Red China and expand the theatre of operations, America's total nuclear arsenal consisted of 13 (THIRTEEN) atomic bombs, and that was IT.
Those thirteen atomic bombs, mostly based upon the Nagasaki design, were the only thing we had that could stop a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, which was definitely a possibility while Stalin was in power. If America had chosen to fight a land war with Beijing over Korea, there would have been no way to stop the Soviets in Europe. Truman knew this. MacArthur did not.
Truman did not betray Nationalist China, far from it. He made it clear that the U.S. would defend Taiwan if Mao and his hordes attempted to invade that island. The fact that Taiwan still exists today proves that Truman's policy was the correct one. It was Carter who stabbed the knife into the back of Taiwan, not Harry Truman.
As for Eastern Europe, Truman didn't back down to the Soviets, and the Berlin Airlift proved that. We didn't abandon Berlin. We saved it from being strangled. But I don't need to defend Truman item-by-item, his record speaks for itself, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. Did he make mistakes? Sure. Name me one President who didn't, hasn't, or won't. Was Truman a man of his word, and a man of honor?
You bet your ass. These latter day historical de-constructionists who think they know everything (again, unnamed) make me want to puke.
Worthy of consideration. It would allow Dr. Rice to win her first elected office on Cheney's coattails and prepare her for the whole enchilada in 2012 and knock the Hildabeast out of contention permanently.
Cheney/Rice in 2008
Rice/ ? in 2012 and 2016 :-)
<< Good post on Truman. I agree.
Harry was directly responsible for the fact that my entire generation lived its active productive life in the context of the Cold War. And the current geopolitical climate is a direct follow on result. >>
Hear! Hear!
With much assistance from the succeeding traitors, frauds, crooks, liars, looters, thieves, mass-murderers and co-serial rapists -- not necessarily in that order: Kennedy; Johnson; Carter and the Klingtongs.
If I had the choice between staying in DC or going home to Wyoming.............well, really is there even a consideration there.
Thank you Dick Cheney for the many years of service to your country. May you have many years of family time and fishing in Wyoming.
Don't keep everything all bottled up. If you've got something on your mind, let it out. :) Couldn't agree with you more.
one could say that Cheney's role in the background has been perfect for launching a candidacy in 2008. He could emerge into the light more and more after 2006. If that starts to happen, then this scenario would be enabled and foreshadowed.
I think Cheney has been a real stand out VP. I would prefer he not run.
"In the final two years of Bush's second term, the president will be a lame duck whose agenda has been exhausted."
I don't know. President Bush could really liven things up by trying to cut the budget.
Could please give us some history on how Always Right your prior reports have been, so we may have some sense as to the reliability of your present report.
I sourced it to DUmmieland, how much more reliable can you get. I mean didn't Bush steal both elections, didn't Bush plot the 9-11 attacks, didn't Bush rig Welstone's plane to crash.....
Dick has stated he is not gonna run, unlike Hillary that really means he is not gonna run.
Uh-huh. Except, that if HST didn't abandon Chang in the first place, there's be no reason nor need to 'defend Taiwan'.
And the baloney surrounding HST is like that of JFK "saving us" during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But it's never mentioned (except by Ann Coulter) that JFK CAUSED IT in the first place by showing zero resolve in stopping the spread on communism during a prior summit meeting with ole Nikita.
btw, it's not 'Bitter Bile'. It's utter disgust and hatred for a 4th rate political hack who sold freedom down the river.
Rice and Beans
The myths of the MSM and the Academic Left are legion and their danger is that they become like the air and secretly permeate all.
<< The US had just been through [Five] years of [The Roosevelt] war and [Eight years of the Roosevelt] depression, had no stomach for what it would take to defeat Stalin and Mao. >>
What absolute bloody rubbish!
Roosevelt surrendered all of Eastern Europe and millions of Soviet subjects into slavery because he was ill and dying and essentially incapacitated [And knew it when he ran for his fourth term as president] and because the Department of State and much of his administration was hugely influenced by their substantial infiltration of Soviet agents.
[Churchill was there but was by then not much more than an elderly drunkard, unable to handle Stalin -- and Roosevelt's malevolent Soviet agents -- on his own]
On his death, all of Roosevelt's Soviet agents were taken over by, acknowledged and tolerated by, increased in number and influence and allowed to dictate and/or direct the direction subsequently taken by by Truman and his mobbed-up "administration."
And as for Mao?
Truman's perfidious incompetence -- and his Soviets -- hadn't yet even created, enabled and facilitated that most evil of all of Human History's long succession of monstrous, mass-murdering, child-rapist, evil, bastards!
If she decided to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, she would face the distinct disadvantage of being a first-time candidate.
What an idiot. Why did he bother writing this article?
Oh, we did not know that, Dr. Brilliant.
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