Reading the Globe's Nov 18th piece about vice President Cheney, one can palpably feel their fingers being crossed, their wishes being cast into the wishing well, that Cheney is on the outs with this supposed "big demotion" the paper sees for his immediate future.
In short, will Rumsfeld's abrupt dismissal finally diminish Cheney's unprecedented dominance of Bush? Or did the always cunning vice president read the writing on the wall and decide that it was time for his good friend Rumsfeld to go?
And typically, as with every story about the VP, one quotient missing in the analysis is the president himself, prosaically fitting into the the Cheney-as-puppetmaster story line the MSM has created for him. (Though, now they want to cast James Baker in Cheney's puppeteering shoes)
They even want us to believe that Cheney somehow strong-armed Bush into the Iraq policy and the War on Terror as if 9/11 never occurred.
With Rumsfeld, Cheney was responsible for the 180-degree reversal in Bush's professed foreign policy
Obviously, 9/11 had nothing to do with it according to the Globe. It was all just Cheney and Rumsfeld.
The Globe has even reached for the macabre, saying that the VP, "America's de facto prime minister" has been "eerily missing from public view".
IN THE 10 days since President Bush fired Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, one figure is eerily missing from public view and public accounts of what occurred: Vice President Dick Cheney. As usual, America's de facto prime minister is either literally or metaphorically in an undisclosed location.
Shades of Edgar Allan Poe, there, Globe.
But, then, they always have made Cheney out to be the Uncle Creepy of the Administration, eh?
They then go on to rehash the MSM's conventional "wisdom" that Cheney is out of favor because Rumsfeld has been terminated, assuming that Cheney's ideas on the Iraq war are finished.
Of course, this assumes that Bush has gone to his new nominee for the Secretary of Defense because of the defeat at the polls and as sudden a turn against his past policies -- even as Bush has repeatedly said since the elections that he has no intention of pulling out of Iraq.
What this story assumes is that Bush is so wishy washy that any wind will blow him from his course. It also assumes that Gates will be bringing a pull-out mentality and that he will bring a contrary opinion to the President's.
See, Bush is too stupid to have his OWN policy and be able to control his OWN administration. Right, Globe? He needs a Cheney, gates, or now a Baker to run it all for him, eh?
But, the MSM has decided to ignore the story that Bush was meeting with Gates on november 5th, BEFORE the elections, to sound him out for Rummy's job. It just isn't very sensible to expect that the president is bringing in a guy who will cause an abrupt about face on a policy that the President has made his cornerstone for most of his presidency.
But, that would deny the Bush-is-stupid story line that the MSM propagates, so they certainly won't walk down this road of analysis, you can be sure!
