The issues around Dick Cheney

Sidney Blumenthal analyzes the Cheney shooting incident and its aftermath for Salon, shedding some light on Cheney's position with the Texas oil aristocracy: Shoot first, avoid questions later: The White House's secretive response to Cheney's misfire cannot be understood apart from the society of Texas royalty 02/15/06. He writes:

The details of the story related by Armstrong, however, defied practical experience and were contradictory. Armstrong told NBC News that while she believed that no one was drinking alcohol, beer may have been served at lunch. "There may have been a beer or two in there," she said, "but remember not everyone in the party was shooting." Armstrong's statement about beer appeared on the MSNBC Web site, but was subsequently and inexplicably scrubbed. Dr Pepper replaced beer in later versions of Armstrong's telling. On the Hunting Accident and Incident Report Form of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the shooter, Richard B. Cheney, checked the "No" box for the question, "Under the apparent influence of intoxicants or drugs?" But in an interview with Fox News Wednesday, Cheney admitted to having a beer earlier in the day, contrary to his statement to Texas officials.

The murky method by which Cheney decided to handle the disclosure of the shooting was guaranteed to raise questions about the incident. He behaved secretly, evaded standard protocol and brushed aside his obligations to the law. Unless Whittington dies, precipitating a grand jury probe, requiring witnesses to testify separately under oath, the true story may never be known, despite Cheney's Fox interview.

Whether or not the exact facts of the case are ever conclusively established, what happened at twilight in the south Texas brush has revealed the hierarchy of power within the Bush White House and the interests of those who wield that power. The surreptitious handling inside the White House of the shooting, moreover, cannot be understood apart from the society of Texas royalty and the ambitions of those, like Cheney and Karl Rove, who aspire to it. None of it is metaphoric.

Jules Witcover looks at Rise of the Vice Presidency Times Media Services 02/17/06:

In addition to Cheney's enhanced policy role in the vice presidency, his abhorrence of the public spotlight and his personally secretive ways invited suspicions. A man who seemed frequently to be slipping away to "undisclosed locations" for security reasons conveyed a sense of aloofness that in time cooled his earlier high ratings in the polls.

However, the fact that this vice president has a history of heart ailments and has categorically said he will not seek the presidency in 2008 relieves him of any personal compulsion to seek the limelight. That seems to be fine with him, and also to diminish in him the sense of most politicians to worry about public and press criticism.

The vice presidency in Cheney's hands thus is not seen by him as a steppingstone to the presidency, as it was for the current president's father and for Bill Clinton's stand-in, Al Gore. Being vice president, with a very strong voice in the administration, seems enough for him.

In this light, Cheney's casual explanation for leaving to his Texas hostess and eyewitness to the shooting the task of breaking the news to the world is more understandable, coming from this very private man in public office.