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Cheney Dodges a Bullet

How Cheney's week could have gotten even more miserable.

He could've had a worse week. Click image to expand.
He could've had a worse week
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Harriet Miers has withdrawn her Supreme Court nomination. The special prosecutor is expected to indict at least one, and perhaps two, White House officials, and it's not inconceivable that he'll name Dick Cheney as an unindicted co-conspirator. Could Dick Cheney's week get any worse? Incredibly, it might have. Just minutes ago, Paul Volcker's commission looking into the U.N. oil-for-food scandal released a report documenting evidence that roughly half the companies that participated in that program paid bribes to Saddam Hussein. If Halliburton, the company of which Cheney was chairman until the summer of 2000, had been on that list, the Bush White House would have had yet another embarrassment on its hands. But Cheney dodged the bullet. Halliburton isn't even mentioned in the report. Whew! To see who is, click here. (George Galloway, call your lawyer. Again.)

 
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Timothy Noah is a former Slate staffer. His  book about income inequality, "The Great Divergence," will be published by Bloomsbury in 2012.

Photograph of Dick Cheney by Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse.