Forget about Bush's assertion during a nationally broadcast television interview last week that Cheney will be his VP for term two, says Lobe. "Cheney has a large bull's-eye on his back, painted there by Republican 'realists'."
For them, Cheney has become a major liability, not only to Bush's re-election chances, but - as the leader of the administration's imperialist faction with the greatest direct influence on Bush himself - to US economic and strategic interests abroad as well.Colin Powell of course is the realists' inside man, but more important are those outside realists that seem to be grabbing the reins.
They include top officials of the first Bush administration, including former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, who chairs Bush junior's president's foreign intelligence advisory board, and former secretary of state James Baker, who just moved back into the White House as junior's personal envoy charged with persuading Iraq's creditors to forgive tens of billions of dollars of that country's foreign debt.All of these folks have worked with Cheney before when he was Bush 41's Secretary of Defense, and there is no love lost between them and Cheney.They also include the former president himself, according to knowledgeable sources who say he has encouraged both Scowcroft and Baker - as well as other prominent foreign-policy Republicans like Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel - to try to get Cheney dumped from the ticket next year.
My own call remains the same as it has for the last six months: Cheney's "doctors" will suddenly advise him that a national campaign would be too stressful, and he will bow out for "health reasons". My guess is right after the Dems lock up their candidate, but no later than April.
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