Could Cheney Be the Next One Out?

Newsmax is speculating that Vice President Dick Cheney could be the next major Administration figure to leave. I doubt it, and I'll explain why in a minute, but here's their story:

When President George W. Bush hosted two top Democrats in the Oval Office last week to try to build a post-election truce, he seemed for a moment to forget that Vice President Dick Cheney was also in the room.

"All three of us recognize the importance of working together to get things done," Bush said, referring to incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer. Apparently excluded was Cheney, seated to the side on a couch.

It was a slip-up, but one that political analysts deemed symbolic of the waning influence of a vice president frequently caricatured in the past as a puppet master who wielded the real power in Bush's presidency.

Known as a foreign policy hawk who pushed hard for the Iraq war and programs like the warrantless wiretapping of terrorism suspects after the September 11 attacks, Cheney's influence had begun to diminish well before Tuesday's election that ushered Democrats to power in both houses of Congress, analysts said.

"The vice president was hugely influential in Bush's first term," said Calvin Jillson, political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. "His power was always bound to wane but the trajectory of that decline has accelerated after the election and it is now in free fall."

Elected Vice Presidents are not like appointed cabinet members. The President can't fire the Vice President, and historically, they stick it out throughout their term. The last Vice President to depart early was Spiro Agnew who left when some past scandal caught up with him. Had that not happened, Agnew might have gone on to become President following the resignation of President Nixon.

Though Cheney's influence on Bush may be dwindling, he was still thought highly enough to be put to heavy use during the campaign. Whether he helped or not is debatable, but the Administration certainly wasn't trying to hide him.

I've written in the past that a Cheney resignation would certainly spice things up in the last two years. With no incumbents running in 2008 and a completely open field, the President would actually be in a position to name his likely successor (at least as Republican nominee) by appointing one of the prominent Republicans to VP. Can you imagine, however, what would happen in a Dem controlled Senate regarding confirmation? If the president nominated one of the '08 contenders, like Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani, there would be open warfare in the Senate. Not only that, but until someone was confirmed, Nancy Pelosi would be second in line for the presidency, and that right there ought to keep Cheney in the job.

I don't think anyone seriously believes that Cheney will resign, though it certain would make things entertaining if he did.