Cheney's Not On The Ticket For His Looks

A “political analyst” named Larry Sabato says that Mr. Cheney has “blown it.”

"One would have expected a classic Washington establishment insider to know how to keep his reputation intact through innumerable controversies – calling the 'right' people here, consulting the 'wise' men and women of D.C. there, taking the puffed-up press poobahs of the Capital City to lunch at the White House here and there.”

In other words, Cheney is no Henry Kissinger, whom Sabato holds up as a role model the veep should have followed (Given that Kissinger was an expatriate, Ivy-league womanizer to Cheney’s stoic man’s man westerner, can you imagine how foolish Cheney would have made himself look attempting this? Besides, the press always loved Kissinger for precisely the aforementioned traits, Nixon or no Nixon; he was the Colin Powell of his day.) . As a consequence, Cheney “has been Nixon in the Bush term. He has hunkered down in the White House and 'undisclosed locations.' He's been uncommunicative with the broader public and unconcerned about his image until it's too late.”

Forget Henry Kissinger; what Sabato is really saying is that Cheney has “failed his President” by not being John Edwards. When you stop and think about it, this “dump Cheney” buzz didn’t start until after John Kerry made Edwards Robin to his Batman. Now, with Cheney’s counterpart being a boyish, telegenic, “sexy” hairboy – everything Cheney isn’t – suddenly all the Halliburton and “rigid neocon ideologue” crapola (which Sabato spares no keystrokes citing) which hasn’t matter a whit is suddenly a “horrible liability Bush can’t afford.”

But will it really turn out that way? Will Edwards really run rings around Cheney in their veep debate?

Let’s be candid: the Democrats are still all about symbolism and surface imagery, with not a smidgen of substance in sight. Reportedly, despite the presence on the convention speaking docket of lunatics like Howie Dean, Ted Kennedy, now Hillary (yet another Kerry flip-flop), they’re going to try to depict their ticket as being more testosterone-laden than its GOP counterpart (Do you want to screech “GOOOOOOD MORNING VIETNAAAAAM!!!!” or should I?). But what roles are Kerry and Edwards really intending to play?

I’ll tell you: John Kennedy and Bill Clinton.

Stop laughing, I’m serious. Kerry, with his swift boat and four-month documentary tour of SE Asia, complete with home movie camera, staged attacks, and paper-cut purple hearts, is to be the young, charming, charismatAHAHAHAHAHAHA *ahem* war hero. And Edwards is to be the slick, smooth-talking sex symbol, even though he’s so short and adolescent looking that “boyish” describes his appearance far more than his personality. And when he opens his mouth, let’s just say that the waters don’t descend below wading depth.

It’s an amazing thing to see a party attempt to depict a symbol of a man who himself was all about ersatz imagery. Clinton tried to recreate Camelot, and now here’s Kerry, with Edwards, trying to recreate Hamelot recreating Camelot. Somehow I don’t think originality was the only thing about the Dems that died with Scoop Jackson and Hubert Humphrey.

Now I will acknowledge that Edwards is tons more Clintonian than poor old Joe Lieberman four years ago, whom Cheney undressed with a single one-liner. But little John doesn’t appear to have Clinton’s encyclopedic sound-byte archive at his mental disposal. You get him into just about any topic beyond talking-point level and he is in way over his head. I think that will definitely come across in their debate.

Plus, what you have to remember about Cheney, and which will also come across on the tube, is his calm, confident self-assurance. The veep just oozes competence. When you listen to him on national security matters or the economy, you feel like you can take it to the bank (something the Senate Intel report and the its British counterpart have reinforced). This is what the Dems hate about him, and why they call him “arrogant” and all manner of other nasty epithets. It’s also why they’re trying to buffalo the President into dropping him from the GOP ticket. They remember why Bush tapped him in the first place, and know that the contrast of Cheney’s manhood with Edwards’ “metrosexuality” in a time of war will throw the Dem ticket far into the shade. And that will only reinforce the same factor at the top of the respective tickets.

And I don’t think there’s much chance of the disciplined, buttoned-down veep dropping any F-bombs on–camera, either.