Smushed Bush

Cheney's performance last night underscores his running mate's shortcomings

by Dan Kennedy

Yes, Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman engaged in an unusually substantive, intelligent, and cordial debate on Thursday night. And yes, the outcome was basically a tie. Cheney was a bit more impressive on the fine points of military and foreign policy, but Lieberman was able to articulate a vision for the country that had greater thematic oomph.

But the 90-minute encounter was a bad one for the Republicans for a simple reason: Lieberman's performance enhanced Al Gore's candidacy, taking off some of Gore's rough edges while emphasizing the themes of peace, prosperity, and continuity that are Gore's strongest suits. Cheney, by contrast, served only to underline George W. Bush's negatives -- that he is lazy and incurious at best, boneheadedly stupid at worst.

Let's face it: if you watched both debates, you've got to be hoping to God that if Bush gets in, Cheney will be calling the shots.

It's not that Cheney was trying to show up Bush; it's just that it was unavoidable. Take Yugoslavia, where Slobodan Milosevic was being chased out of Belgrade even as the two number-twos were squaring off. On Tuesday, Bush suggested that Russia intervene, sounding for all the world that the idea had just popped into his head and that he'd decided to go with it because "Russia" is a word he can actually pronounce. Gore pounced, noting -- to Bush's apparent surprise -- that Russia has been supporting Milosevic.

Cheney, on the other hand, showed exactly how Russia could be helpful in resolving the crisis in Yugoslavia, and said it would be a good occasion for the United States to test Russian president Vladimir Putin's commitment to democracy. "Governor Bush was correct in his assessment," Cheney gamely offered -- never mind that it was blindingly obvious that he'd just constructed a rather impressive theoretical framework in which to hide Bush's blunder.

Cheney has sometimes been described -- sometimes by me, too -- as perhaps the Bush campaign's biggest liability. And for sure, his congressional voting record, in which he opposed banning cop-killer bullets and funds for Head Start, and his dubious record as the incredibly well-paid head of an oil-equipment company (which Lieberman gently poked fun at on Thursday), are ripe targets. I'm not sure Bernard Shaw did the audience any favors by steering the discussion away from areas where Lieberman could have gone on the attack, because some of Cheney's views are well outside the mainstream.

But Cheney's somber, spectral presence has actually been an asset. To date, he's made only two major public appearances. The first -- his speech at the Republican convention, in Philadelphia -- was the second-best (to Colin Powell) of that dreary week, his sharp, flatly delivered rebuke of the Clinton-Gore years a welcome jolt after three days of icky happy talk. On Thursday, he was expected to be crushed by the jovial Lieberman, yet managed a draw simply by talking substance in a believable way. It's hard to picture someone as determinedly uncharismatic as Cheney being president; but it's reassuring to picture him telling Bush what to do. I just hope Bush picked Cheney because he, more than anyone, realizes he needs a prime minister.

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Dan Kennedy's work can be accessed from his Web site: http://www.dankennedy.net

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Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy[a]phx.com

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Articles from July 24, 1997 & before can be accessed here

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