Do Republicans Want To Oust Dick Cheney?

The Washington Post’s Sally Quinn, who has never been accused of being an uninformed reporter who doesn’t have some good sources, reports that “The big question right now among Republicans is how to remove Vice President Cheney from office.”

Quinn contends this was the question even before the Post’s blockbuster new series that is a revelation to many who gave Cheney the benefit of the doubt and confirmation to his critics that he has a different view of government (and perhaps democracy) than not only past Vice Presidents but many members of Congress, many Americans and many Presidents.

Quinn writes:

As the reputed architect of the war in Iraq, Cheney is viewed as toxic, and as the administration’s leading proponent of an attack on Iran, he is seen as dangerous. As long as he remains vice president, according to this thinking, he has the potential to drag down every member of the party — including the presidential nominee — in next year’s elections.

Removing a sitting vice president is not easy, but this may be the moment. I remember Barry Goldwater sitting in my parents’ living room in 1973, in the last days of Watergate, debating whether to lead a group of senior Republicans to the White House to tell President Nixon he had to go. His hesitation was that he felt loyalty to the president and the party. But in the end he felt a greater loyalty to his country, and he went to the White House.

Not to be cynical, but I also lived through that moment and it doesn’t quite feel like it’s there yet.

Nor do today’s GOP leaders seem as willing to hold their breaths, put aside partisanship and worries about the next elections, and make a difficult, perhaps career-ending, wrenching decision. Like Cheney, Nixon did a lot for Republicans who had run for election and re-election and was a party stalwart over the years. MORE QUINN:

For such a plan to work, however, they would need a ready replacement. Until recently, there hasn’t been an acceptable alternative to Cheney — nor has there been a persuasive argument to convince President Bush to make a change. Now there is.

The idea is to install a vice president who could beat the Democratic nominee in 2008. It’s unlikely that any of the top three Republican candidates — former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Sen. John McCain of Arizona or former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — would want the job, for fear that association with Bush’s war would be the kiss of death.

According to Quinn, the problem is WHO would take Cheney’s place. The existing “A list” Republican 2008 Presidential wannabes, she writes, are unlikely for various reasons.

She dangles the name Fred Thompson.

That would indeed be novel: a former Senator who is now an actor who hasn’t been on the actual political scene serving in government for a few years.

It might help the GOP, but for Thompson to be plucked out of non-office-status and elevated to Vice President might create a new form of backlash from some Democrats who might otherwise stray from the Democratic Party and from independents who would see it as sheer, unadulterated political calculation. Late night comics would have a field day. It would turn a positive (Cheney leaving) into a negative (Thompson exciting the base but the appointment turning off or raising eyebrows among many other non-lockstep GOP voters).

So her report is interesting. Her reasons why not picking any of the three leading contenders so far in the primary race are logical.

But certainly the GOP has some other qualified men and women who could fill an empty Vice Presidential post and raise less controversy than a highly attractive former politician and actor who has now in the news largely because he’s a commodity that could be offered to voters as a lesser-of-several-evils in a political race.

Thompson is not rising in the political polls because he has accomplished so much in policy proposals or legislative accomplishments the past few years and because of an awesome record. It’s because he’s considered an alternative candidate in a possibly-flawed leading GOP Presidential primary field.

Somehow finding a way to retire Cheney (who she thinks will soon have to have some routine medical surgery that would be the perfect chance for him to declare he now needs to spend some time with his famliy, probably in an undisclosed location where his emails disappear) would most likely help the GOP by removing a King Kong-sized political albatross from the party’s neck. Choosing Thompson would smack of sheer partisanship — putting in someone strictly to win an election.

There are others in the GOP who Democrats and independents would welcome as less transparently Rovian choices.

PS: But don’t forget: HOW MANY TIMES now have we seen articles the past few years surfacing with speculation about Cheney possibly stepping down? How many times have stories surfaced later that Bush stands by his Veep?

Probably as many times as Cheney has visited his doctor.

TMV thanks the great news aggregator Hinessight for the tip.