Fred “The Beetle” Barnes has a long history of parroting the line of whatever Republicans happen to be in power. Barnes is known to be close to the current White House. So when Fred Barnes says that Dick Cheney should step aside as Vice President of the United States in favor of an anointed 2008 Presidential candidate, you’ve got to call it a White House trial balloon.
Says Barnes:
It’s unlike Bush to dump somebody whom he likes and respects, but the president needs to do something shocking and dramatic such as putting in Condoleezza Rice…. [The best thing would be for Bush to announce that] “Dick Cheney will be around as an outside adviser and I can call him on the phone, but I’d like to anoint somebody who I think will be the next leader of the United States.”
Another sign of the Trial Balloon Circus is the “Unnamed Republican Strategist.” From the Times of London:
One Republican strategist, who did not want to be named, said: “If I were Bush I would think of changing Cheney. It is one of the few substantial things he can do to change the complexion of his administration. The rest is nibbling around the edges.”
Finally, and from the Times of London as well as Think Progress, we get the following notice:
Cheney appeared to have been caught napping during a visit to the Oval Office by China’s president, Hu Jintao, on Friday, although he claimed he had been looking down at his notes. It has often been said that he would cite medical reasons should he ever resign.
In short, it appears that the Bush administration is doing the preliminary groundwork required to “Pull a Putin” and replace Dick Cheney as Vice President for “health reasons” with some politician “anointed” by Republican party leaders as the elite-chosen 2008 candidate for president. As with Vladimir Putin, who gained supreme power at the price of granting Boris Yeltsin immunity from prosecution, we can expect whoever replaces Cheney to gain party support for a 2008 presidential bid, at the price of agreeing to pardon Bush administration officials for the wrongdoing we already know about and the wrongdoing we’re all going to find out about eventually.
This is just my own prediction based on my read of the situation, and I do not have any independent confirmation of it. I could be wrong. But if I’m right, the plan is for democracy to be subverted, for justice and accountability to be denied, and for the Republican elite to maintain a stranglehold on the reins of American government. The problem is that if the political situation remains as it is now and the Bush administration continues to be hugely unpopular, the American people will balk at the plan, elect the Democrat and imprison Bush.
Of course, a new Orange Alert or invasion of a foreign WMD-holding country might change all that overnight, mightn’t it?
I’m taking off my tin hat now. Is this just a kooky conspiracy theory, or will it actually come to pass? Wait and see.
we can expect whoever replaces Cheney to gain party support for a 2008 presidential bid, at the price of agreeing to pardon Bush administration officials
Of course. The Ford pardon. It’s deja vu all over again.
What’s Ashcroft doing these days?
John Ashcroft? Oh, he’s giving speeches to less-than-filled rooms and earning a couple hundred thou a year as a corporate lobbyist.
But I don’t expect him to be a 2008 presidential candidate, at least one endorsed by the elite Republican Party establishment. He embarrassed the Bush administration too much by taking attention away from Dubya and singing Let the Eagle Soar in public.
Since leaving the Verve, Richard Ashcroft has been pursuing a successful solo career. This summer he’ll be playing the big Euro festivals (I think).
Bittersweet Symphony would make a cool campaign theme song.
Cheyney to resign for health reasons? If the health reasons are Lying, Subversion, Secrecy and probably Treason, I can understand why he should resign. Since we specifically do not know what he is up to when Georgie is out playing, perhaps Cheyney should be subject to a medical/political examination to see if he has anything remotely resembling a political or social conscience. Maybe he has a Doctors (Rice) note. As for Ashcroft, let him stay out there with Pat Robertson and the other extremeists. They all have the same medical condition. Megolomania!
Take a popular Republican and potential 2008 candidate like John McCain. Given McCain’s continuing popularity, is it really a smooth move to have him run in ’08 as the very unpopular Bush’s vice president? Or should he run as an outsider and a maverick, which is his style and appeal anyway?
Condi would take VP in a New York minute, and this buzz might be coming from her camp. People hated Cheney even before he shot that guy in the face, he’s ripe for the pickings of a good bureaucratic infighter, and with the White House strategists preoccupied with trying to stay out of jail, Condi’s in a position to make a move.
But I’ve got to think that Republicans farther from the White House aren’t going to go for it. At a 32% approval rating and several simultaneously unfolding scandals, Bush is in no position to anoint a front-runner.
Besides none of this fits with the Bush-McCain love fest we saw a couple months ago, and you know there was some kind of back room dealmaking going on there.
The Ashcroft question was meant to be rhetorical, dark humor, sort of goth relief for a season with too many bunny-rabbits. Top members of his own party found him too abrasive to work with for a second term; no doubt they still feel the same. But how interesting he gets $220,000 just for lobbying the Senate. And that’s just a ‘good faith estimate rounded to the nearest $20,000.’ How nice to have so much money you can’t really keep accurate track of the last 20 grand. Thanks for digging it up, Jim. Now, wouldn’t it be really interestng to know WHO thinks he’s worth paying $220,000?