Dick Cheney is known to be far and away the most powerful Vice President America has ever had. There is not even any debate on this subject. The obvious question is “How did he become so powerful?” It's not a new question.
This question is generally answered briefly, and pretty much everyone who knows about the issue answers it much the same way. The first response is to point to his experience in government. They will always point to Cheney’s experience in the White House as Ford’s chief of staff, his time in Congress during which he was Republican Whip, then his time as Secretary of Defense under George H. W. Bush. The second thing normally mentioned is George W. Bush’s dislike of the mechanics of governance, usually associated with a brief statement that as the first MBA President, “W” delegates his work to his subordinates. Both facts are true, but “W” has brought a lot of experienced people into government and delegated work to them. No one else has ever placed their own agenda into action in the way that defines the Bush Presidency. What has made Dick Cheney such a unique individual in “W’s” White House?
At last Barton Gellman explains how Cheney accomplished his task of setting so very much of the White House agenda in his excellent book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. There is a lot in the book, but what has not been clear until now has been what tools Cheney has used to manipulate government and set it to the tasks that forwarded his agenda. His agenda included the economic issues, the security issues and the energy issues.
Cheney was brought in as a defense – foreign policy expert to educate then Governor George W. Bush as he prepared to run for election as President. His broad experience in the federal government and his wide network of personal contacts made him a logical person to task with finding a Vice Presidential candidate to join with Bush. Cheney’s control of that process provided him with the background on potential candidates and at the same time to frame what characteristics the Vice President should have. Cheney defined the requirements such that he himself was the best candidate, convinced Bush that he met the requirements for Vice President, and with his knowledge of the other candidates’ deepest secrets he was able to present them to W in such a way that they were not selected. In the end, candidate George W. Bush was presented with a single clear candidate who met the requirements Cheney had established – Cheney himself.
Cheney was not selected the assist in electing Bush. He was selected in part because he would not run for President himself, so he would not become an opponent within the White House fighting Bush’s policies. So Cheney was chosen to assist Bush govern when he was elected without becoming a threat to Bush.
Cheney started organizing the executive office even as the battle for the Florida votes was being fought by Jim Baker. At that point Cheney took over the staffing of the federal government for the incoming administration. He asked Bush for the role and Bush gave it to him. He knew what positions needed to be filled, what individuals in those positions could do for him or to him, and he had his wide network of contacts and friends available to fill those jobs. He also had a Republican Senate to work with, so that his appointees could be quickly confirmed.
The network that Cheney set up is quit interesting. First he brought “Scooter” Libby and David Addington into his own office. These were people he had long worked with. He then arranged for everything in the White House to run through his office. In addition, he had Libby assigned as Assistant to the President, the highest rank in the White House so that he outranked almost everyone in Bush’s office. Several other members of Cheney’s staff also held the same rank as individuals doing the same job for the President. Mary Matalin, Cheney’s Counselor, shared rank and office space with Karen Hughes who was Counselor for Bush. In previous White Houses the members of the Vice Presidents’ office held rank one level below that of the equivalent person on the President’s staff.
Then Cheney chose individuals for the policy positions. Cheney placed Condoleezza Rice as National Security Advisor (she had previously worked for him) and backed her up with Steven J. Hadley who had also worked for Cheney at the Department of Defense. Then he placed Colin Powell, who he had previously promoted to Chief of Staff when he was Secretary of Defense, at Secretary of State . Donald Rumsfeld, who went to Secretary of Defense, had been Cheney’s mentor and closest friend since they worked together under Nixon. Paul O’Neil, who went to Secretary of Treasury, had worked closely with Cheney when Cheney was Ford’s chief of staff. Cheney chose John Ashcroft as Attorney General. Ashcroft had embarrassingly just lost a Senate race to a man who had died three weeks before the election, and was grateful to Cheney for the position.
Cheney was not working just to get control of the top of the major departments. He also knew that a lot of issues that came to the top for decisions had been selected and framed by individuals at levels below Department Secretary, so he suggested that trusted acolytes be appointed positions at lower levels in the bureaucracy. One example is John Bolton who went to the State Department to keep Colin Powell from going off Cheney’s defined reservation. These appointments gave Cheney control or awareness of new issues as they moved up the bureaucracy and gave him a major advantage over other players of bureaucratic politics since he was generally prepared for new issues before they were.
The foreign policy team consists of The Attorney General, The central intelligence director and the secretaries of state, defense and treasury. When the Foreign policy team meets, it is called the Principals Committee, except when the President is attending. Then it is called the National Security Council. The normal job of the National Security Adviser is to chair meetings of the Principals Committee. Chairing the committee means to set the agenda and to coordinate activities the committee directs. Cheney chose to join the committee, making him the highest ranking member when the President was absent. Richard Haas, director of policy planning in the State Department, later described Cheney’s role as getting “Three bites at the apple,” on every decision. Cheney got his information from the deputies, then from the Principal’s committee, and then had his influence on Bush when the two of them were alone.
This wasn’t all that Cheney was involved in. As Vice President he had an office with the Senate. He also had regular meetings with Senator Arlen Specter and a few other senior Republican Senators. He also went to his old friend Bill Thomas, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and asked for an office in the House. He got one right off the floor. This was important because all tax bills originate in the House.
With this structure in the executive branch and congress as well as his web of contacts throughout the government Cheney was in position to be aware of and able to influence major issues from their inception to the point at which George W. Bush finally decided what to do with them. This was possible because Bush himself was disinterested in most of what Cheney was doing .
It appears to me that the hard right-wing turn of the Bush administration in Bush’s first term was largely dictated by Cheney’s agenda. It was permitted by Bush because he trusted Cheney. Cheney immediately followed any direction given by Bush and so kept that trust, but in many cases Bush simply did not make a decision, letting issues grow and fester in the bureaucracy. In those cases Cheney felt free to use his own power to implement the elements of his own agenda.
Barton Gellman describes this process in much greater depth and carries it on well past its initiation. The book is worth buying and reading.
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