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Wanted: A New Shadow President

Timothy NoahPosted Monday, March 5, 2001, at 5:48 PM ET

With Dick Cheney in the hospital yet again complaining of discomfort in the chest area, Chatterbox couldn't resist quizzing various Washington observers about who would run the Bush administration should Cheney suddenly be rendered unavailable. (This is a distinct question from who would be vice president since a new vice president wouldn't necessarily assume Cheney's degree of importance. Probably Bush would make Tom Ridge his new veep, and Ridge isn't shadow president material.) The Washington observers refused to be quoted by name (wouldn't you?), but Chatterbox has aggregated their wisdom and added a bit of his own.

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It goes without saying that George W. Bush isn't up to the job. Chief of staff Andy Card lacks sufficient stature. Colin Powell has the stature, but probably not the necessary interest in domestic affairs. Karl Rove and Karen Hughes have Bush's trust, but insufficient experience at the national level. Trent Lott and Dennis Hastert probably don't have Bush's trust, and they certainly don't have the brains. White House budget director Mitch Daniels has the brains, but probably lacks sufficient influence with Dubya. Jim Baker has done it before (he was Ronald Reagan's chief of staff), but Dubya doesn't like him, and even if he did, it would be way too embarrassing. The more you ponder it, the more all roads point to one man: Donald Rumsfeld.

Imagine you're Dubya. You're in a blind panic because you've lost the guy who winds the key in your back every morning. You want Cheney. But you can't have Cheney. What's the next best thing? The guy who invented Cheney! Who actually served as chief of staff to Gerald Ford before Cheney did! And who also knows a thing or two about domestic affairs, since he ran Richard Nixon's Office of Economic Opportunity. You wouldn't actually make him vice president, of course--he's too old and too scary to assume so formal a role. Maybe you wouldn't even need to bring him into the White House. In fact, it would probably be better if you didn't. But you could quietly get him to hand over day-to-day Pentagon operations to an underling so he could make himself available more or less full-time as an adviser. You could have him chair meetings. Your cover story could be that you want to involve the Defense department in every decision because that's how committed you are to repairing the national defense machinery that wound down under your predecessor. Alternatively, you could push Card out and make Rummy the new chief of staff. Or you could make Rumsfeld some sort of "deputy" to Card when in fact Rummy would be calling the tune.

To fully grasp the terrors of the Rumsfeld scenario, read Jason Vest's excellent Rumsfeld profile (and this online sidebar) in the Feb. 26 American Prospect. Vest provides loving detail on how Rumsfeld disemboweled Henry Kissinger (too liberal!) and Nelson Rockefeller during the Ford administration. Interestingly, the one bureaucratic rival whose career Rumsfeld was unable to run off the tracks was George Bush Sr.

Photograph of Donald Rumsfeld by HO/Reuters.

E-mail Timothy Noah at .

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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.

COMMENTS

Reader Comments From The Fray:

[Notes from the Fray Editor: Other suggestions: George Bush Sr, Vin Weber, Al Gore.]

Why did he leave Ms. Rice off the list? OK, no one can spell her 1st name, but she is smart and easy on the eyes.

--Danny

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I don't think that the President is dumb per se. However I do think he's intellectually lazy. He was a C student at Yale who got into Harvard law because of class-based affirmative action. His selection of a man who had his first of many heart attacks at 37 for vice president is just the latest display of his poor judgment. Should anything happen to the President how confident are we that a prospective President Cheney won't pass the next day? I'm also concerned about the moral issue of placing a man you call your friend in a position that endangers his life. The news reports on average heart attack victims say that with VP Cheney having a first heart attack at 37, and 4 by age 60, his probability of living to the end of President Bush's first term is 10%!

--Mark J

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I have a theory that the author Tim Noah must be a highly intelligent Conservative operator whose intent is to pose as a Liberal, and write complete garbage. What appears to be foolishness is actually very skillfully designed to reflect poorly on the Liberal intelligentsia, making them look like a bunch of village idiots.

He succeeded.

--Floyd Bowles

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The obvious choice would be Powell, and I think appointment to the VP spot would be acceptable to him (and his wife). He was not interested in running, but this would put him in line of succession to the Presidency without that burden. Politically, it would be a masterstroke for Bush. It's just plain silly to suppose, as Noah does, that Powell would turn it down because he lacks "interest" in domestic issues. The veep post doesn't have a specific portfolio; Powell and Bush would have to agree on what it would contain.

--Publius

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What happens if Cheney dies? He will be replaced by the GOP machine with another brainless, rabid, warmongering, in-the-pocket-of-the-rich, anti-earth, anti-working class dog. In other words, nothing much will change - at least not for the next 4 years

--Brandon Lourde

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It never ceases to amaze me that people think Cheney should resign, yet don't think businesses should be allowed to fire people based on their health insurance cost to the company.

--Audie Sodke

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