New York mag: Why Cheney's more trouble than he's worth... but won't go:

Start with the fact that Cheney, irrevocably, has gone from being a figure of fear to being a punch line—and not just in the hands of Leno, Letterman, and Conan. “I’m really glad to be here,” Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said the other day at a conference in San Jose. “My other invitation was to go quail hunting with Dick Cheney.” When someone as terminally unfunny as Gates can score laughs at your expense, you know you’ve crossed the pop-cultural Rubicon into Admiral Stockdale territory.

The mockery would be easier to shrug off were Cheney a broadly popular figure with the American electorate. But according to the most recent CBS–New York Times poll, the vice-president’s numbers—23 percent of voters view him favorably, 41 percent unfavorably—are even worse than Bush’s, a noteworthy achievement. Owing to his intimate involvement in a litany of policy cock-ups and politico-ethical scandals (Iraq, Halliburton, Plamegate), Cheney has long been, as Noonan put it last week, “the administration’s hate magnet.” Now he’s become a vivid symbol of its incompetence as well—the poster boy for the Gang That (Literally) Can’t Shoot Straight.

And let’s not forget that Cheney’s political albatrossity is only destined to grow more pronounced next year when the Libby trial commences. In the furor over Quailgate, it was easy to forget the recent disclosure that Libby had told the grand jury that his “superiors” had authorized some of his intelligence leaks to journalists. And it was easy to overlook Cheney’s startling suggestion in his interview with Brit Hume that, as vice-president, he has the power to declassify information unilaterally. Both revelations are ripe with legal import for Libby. And both are brimming with political implications for Cheney and Bush—none of them positive.

Meantime, the Wash Times' Insight magazine dreams Cheney's departure is a possibility. No chance, a source tells NY's John Heilemann:

Another explanation comes from a longtime friend and political adjutant to Bush, whom I e-mailed the other day. Wouldn’t the administration be better served politically, I asked, if Cheney were to be replaced?

“I hear you,” replied this person. “The answer is maybe, but it will never, ever, happen. In Bush World, loyalty trumps political gain every time.”

And then he goes on to suggest that perhaps Bush doesn't want to annoint a successor, because his brother Jeb may jump into the race.

Posted by Laura at February 27, 2006 06:31 PM