The Stealth Candidate

No shortage of daunting topics today: The toppling of Lebanon's government. Nuclear negotiations with Iran. The governors meeting with Bush. The fact that Republicans are already looking for a compromise on Bush's Social Security plan. The huge blizzard predicted for Washington that turned out to be a couple of inches. And how bad was Chris Rock, really?

But I want to begin by addressing something I wrote yesterday. The vast majority of the press may indeed be rooting for a Hillary presidential campaign, but one prominent exception is Fred Barnes. He's pulling for a Cheney presidential campaign.

Yes, there's the inconvenient fact that Dick Cheney has ruled out running. "I'm going to serve this president for the next four years, and then I'm out of here," he told "Fox News Sunday." And I think this would be a pretty big problem for the veep. Imagine the Democratic ad: "First he lied about WMD. Then he said he wouldn't run for president. Can we really trust Dick Cheney? The clock is ticking." The sound would be of a very loud heartbeat, just to remind voters of his ticker problem.

Is he qualified to be POTUS? Not much question there. Some Dems would argue he's been doing the job for years.

But is Cheney in '08 a serious possibility? Could he run as a man to deliver a Bush third term, much as Bush's dad was seen as offering Reagan's third term? (Then why not Jeb--they wouldn't have to change the WH stationery.) Is this a trial balloon by Barnes, or just some three-years-and-eight-months-in-advance thumbsucking, not unlike the Hillary boomlet?

"As professions of lack of interest in the presidency go," Barnes admits, "Cheney's is unusually strong. Yet there's every reason he should change his mind. He's not too old. President Reagan was 69 when he took office. Despite past heart trouble, Cheney hasn't had a serious health problem for years. Besides, his health has nothing to do with his refusal to consider running in 2008. He's an experienced candidate at the national level and an effective debater with a wry sense of humor.

"But there's a larger reason Cheney should seek to succeed Bush. In all likelihood, the 2008 election, like last year's contest, will focus on foreign policy. The war on terror, national security, and the struggle for democracy will probably dominate American politics for a decade or more. Bush's legacy, or at least part of it, will be to have returned these issues to a position of paramount concern for future presidents. And who is best qualified to pursue that agenda as knowledgeably and aggressively as Bush? The answer is the person who helped Bush formulate it, namely Cheney. . . .

"The main rap I've heard on Cheney is that he lacks the charisma to get elected. This is nonsense. So what if he can be characterized as Bush without the pizzazz? Cheney has what's far more important--gravitas."

Fred concludes that Cheney could get around his vow, in effect, by having Bush draft him. Well, maybe. There are a lot of other GOP wannabes out there--McCain, Frist, Romney, Rudy--who won't want that to happen.

By the way, if you're interested in Ari Fleischer's take on grappling with the press--and who isn't?--I've got the skinny on his book here.

If you've sensed that Bush is losing the Social Security PR war--you're right. At least according to USA Today:

"Only one in three Americans approves of President Bush's handling of Social Security, his lowest rating on the issue since he took office.

"A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll conducted Friday-Sunday found that 35% approved of Bush's Social Security record, 56% disapproved and 9% had no opinion. That was down from three weeks ago, when 43% approved. In March 2001, just after he took office, 49% approved...

"The poll showed that Democrats have made headway in their opposition to Bush. In early January, about half of Americans said major changes were needed in the next year or two. Now, fewer than four in 10 say so.

"The country was more evenly divided over which is riskier -- relying on Social Security to keep current benefits flowing or investing some payroll taxes in the market....

"The poll showed higher public approval for AARP, the 35-million-member retiree organization that is leading the opposition to Bush's plan, than for the president."

Which may help explain the following report in the New York Times:

"Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Finance Committee, said Monday that if public opinion did not soon begin to swing in favor of President Bush's Social Security plan, it would be an indication that the plan was in trouble."

Uh--right.

Time has a great item on Putin's view of the American media:

"George Bush knew Vladimir Putin would be defensive when Bush brought up the pace of democratic reform in Russia in their private meeting at the end of Bush's four-day, three-city tour of Europe. But when Bush talked about the Kremlin's crackdown on the media and explained that democracies require a free press, the Russian leader gave a rebuttal that left the President nonplussed. If the press was so free in the U.S., Putin asked, then why had those reporters at CBS lost their jobs? Bush was openmouthed. 'Putin thought we'd fired Dan Rather,' says a senior Administration official. 'It was like something out of 1984.'

"The Russians did not let the matter drop. Later, during the leaders' joint press conference, one of the questioners Putin called on asked Bush about the very same firings, a coincidence the White House assumed had been orchestrated. The odd episode reinforced the Administration's view that Putin's impressions of America are often based on urban myths fed to him by ill-informed aides."

Slate's Tim Noah details the Russian leader's semantic creativity, or fib:

"At a joint press conference in Bratislava with President Bush, Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked about the antidemocratic direction in which he's been taking that country. Here's how Putin answered:

"'I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that the leaders of the regions of the Russian Federation will not be appointed by the president. Their canvases will be presented, will be submitted to regional parliaments that are elected through secret ballot by all the citizens. This is, in essence, a system of the Electoral College, which is used, on the national level, in the United States, and it is not considered undemocratic, is it?'

"It's been widely noted that this response was somewhat disingenuous about the workings of Russian government. The changes Putin made to the procedure for electing regional leaders of the Russian Federation work as follows: 1) Putin chooses a 'candidate' for regional leader; 2) the regional parliament votes the 'candidate' up or down; 3) if the 'candidate' wins, end of story; 4) if the 'candidate' loses, the regional parliament must vote again; 5) if the 'candidate' loses a second time, the regional parliament is dissolved. Members of the regional parliaments therefore 'face a choice between doing what Putin wants and losing their jobs,' Stephen Sestanovich, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, explained to me by phone. A reasonable shorthand for describing this process is to say that Putin appoints the regional leaders."

David Frum draws upon his native Canada for an I-told-you-so:

"Seven years ago, Andrew Sullivan and I conducted a fierce debate in Slate about same-sex marriage. Along the way, I hazarded this prediction:

"'Andrew, three years after we permit gay marriage, it will be illegal for schools to send home printed forms with one blank for the mother's name and one blank for the father's.'

"Did I say three years? In Canada, it's taken barely one.

"In the province of Ontario, the words 'wife,' 'husband,' 'widow,' and 'widower' are now all to be stricken from the law. The words 'mother' and 'father' cannot be far behind.

"Ontario's action is a reminder that same-sex marriage is not just the extension of an existing legal status to previously excluded persons. Same-sex marriage is a revolution in the definition of marriage for everyone - a revolution not just in law, but in consciousness."

Can't get enough of the Michael Jackson trial? One network's got you covered, says the Los Angeles Times:

"E! and a British TV partner have created an exhausting process to bring the day's highlights to viewers.

"After both sides made opening statements Monday, E! producers grabbed transcripts of the day's court session and began culling about 15 minutes of the most compelling exchanges. . . . Actors had been cast to play Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville, the lawyers and some of the celebrity witnesses that Jackson's attorneys may call.

"This morning, a team of legal analysts will tape about eight minutes of commentary on Monday's proceedings. That analysis will be blended with Monday's reenactment and broadcast tonight at 7:30 and 9. While that is happening, producers will already be wrapping up taping the reenactment of today's court action for broadcast Wednesday.

"The reenactments will be shown Monday through Friday, with a one-hour wrap-up show broadcast Saturdays at 10 a.m.

"Ted Harbert, president of E! Entertainment, pledged that the show would remain faithful to courtroom testimony and said E! would have a 'courtroom observer' in Santa Maria who would convey details on 'style, mannerism and tone' of trial participants to the producer in Los Angeles."

That's how we like our fake news, with the proper mannerisms.

Here's the New York Post account of opening day in court:

"Michael Jackson is an aging, twisted sicko who urged his cancer-stricken victim to call him 'Daddy,' then ogled porn with the boy and fondled him, prosecutors charged in an explosive opening statement yesterday.

"But Jacko's defense lawyer bitterly fired back, telling the rapt jurors that his 46-year-old client is nothing more than the tragically naive victim of an evil grifter scheme concocted by the kid's thieving mom -- who once even tried to scam late-night TV king Jay Leno."

Read enough Hunter Thompson obits? In the San Francisco Chronicle, columnist A.S. Ross says enough:

"Not since the death of Princess Diana has so much worshipful ink been spilled on the occasion of a mere mortal's passing. He was a giant among men. Who cared that for years he had been a largely burned-out case, more of a circus act than a serious writer, reveling in adolescent stunts with firearms, alcohol, narcotics -- the predictable paraphernalia of the self-styled outlaw who wowed the chattering classes and other assorted rubes and poseurs long after his appeal had worn off for almost everybody else?

"Indeed, by coming not to bury Hunter S. Thompson, but to praise him -- unreservedly, remorselessly, endlessly -- his adoring acolytes, who shared the same trade, may be saying more about themselves than about the journalistic practitioner who ended up fantasizing about shotgun golf for ESPN. com.

"For it was through Hunter Thompson, in life and in death, that we journalists could do what we do best -- live vicariously, through others. Wild times, no restraints, so removed from our more humdrum reality. . . .

"The drooling eulogies also do Thompson a disservice because they ultimately fail in the one thing he presumably would want, and based on his early work -- especially his Kentucky Derby piece in Scanlan's and the book 'Hells Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs' -- deserves to be examined critically as a writer who is part of a rich American literary tradition."

But if there was any doubt of Thompson's impact, Tucker Carlson clears it up in the Weekly Standard, describing his reaction--at age 12--to reading "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas":

"In the first chapter, Thompson famously describes the stash he's accumulated for his weekend road trip to Vegas: 'two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of uppers, downers, laughers, screamers.' This is in addition to 'a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls.'

"I resolved to try it all, down to the ether, which I finally located midway through tenth grade in a headshop on the West Side of Manhattan. (It gave me double vision and a headache.) Tracking down and taking everything on Thompson's list became a kind of mission, a pharmacological scavenger hunt that preoccupied me through high school.

"At this point, I should add the customary disclaimer about how drugs are bad, a lie and a trap and a destroyer of lives. That's all true, but not in my case. For me, the whole experience was interesting and fun. I had a great time."

Carlson gets this week's Honesty in Punditry award.