I Want a PS3. And a Pony. And a New Vice President.

In conjunction with the interview in the last post, and the recent revelation in mainstream circles that yes, Dick Cheney is in fact seriously disturbed; The American Prospect ran a post speculating about Cheney’s immediate future:

(...)Cheney is the final sacrifice -- the last layer between Bush and the disapproving public, the skeptical media, and the angry Democrats. In one sense, having him there has always provided Bush a human (and humanizing-by-contrast) buffer against the hordes who oppose him and his policies. To sacrifice Cheney is therefore to have sunk to but one level above the very bottom, the core of the presidency itself. When Cheney goes on television, as he did last week with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, proclaiming the Iraq war a success, he demonstrates that he is either (a) unhinged from reality; or (b) playing a willing role in his own, inevitable discrediting and marginalization.

Under either scenario, his neck is moving slowly but inevitably toward the noose. Somebody, after all, has to pay for the complete collapse of the Republican majority and the conservative agenda. And since Bush himself has never paid the price of his own failures in life, it is Cheney who will pay for them next.

I wish it were that simple. The Vice Presidency of the United States is a constitutional office, meaning that the President does not have the same control over it as he does many cabinet posts and staffers. First, this means that any replacement would have to be appointed by a Democratically controlled congress; but even more pressing, Cheney would have to accept the President’s call for him to resign as he cannot be fired. Furthermore, as it has been made explicitly clear; any attempt to discipline the administration through judiciary action taken by Congress will be met by a White House obsessed with litigious self-preservation. There is a definite question as to when time will run out on the Bush administration before it receives the results of true oversight.

I do not believe Cheney would ever step down, unless he knew that he was subject to impending impeachment by Congress. His ability to speak to the American press (and, by proxy, its people) entirely disconnected from reality and his executive zeal in creating an autocracy in the White House structure only goes to display his lust for unquestionable control at any cost. Every day as the Libby trial progresses, and the subterranean methods used to undermine logical arguments against his ideology and positions are unearthed, it becomes more obvious than it was yesterday (and it was fairly obvious yesterday) that this is a man who values power above all else; even at the expense of the country to which he professes allegiance. I don’t blame anyone for harboring wishes of his removal from public office; however I know every time I buy a lotto ticket, I’ve wasted a dollar on an impossible hope. But maybe one day, if we’re lucky, Mr. Cheney’s number will be called.