The Cheney factor

[Bravo Zulu]

By staying on as vice president, he has skewed policy and damaged the GOP
by Dan Simpson
The decision of President Bush to keep Dick Cheney on as his vice presidential running mate in 2004 may have been the worst thing he has done to America.

I say this not on the basis of whatever policy impact Mr. Cheney may have had within the Bush administration -- the Iraq war, torture, obsessive secrecy, plumping up the executive branch, whatever. The problem is the phenomenon of having in the vice presidential slot a person who will not be running for president in the next election. (Dick Cheney cannot and never could have on the basis of his heart illness.)

Note that the focus at the moment is not on the relative quality of the Democratic or Republican candidates' positions on issues, but rather on how much money each has been able to scoop up from donors so far or -- in the case of Mitt Romney -- from his own pockets.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07199/802326-374.stm