Strictly in terms of the November election, it's fair to liken Joe Biden to Dick Cheney, who was tapped to serve as George W. Bush's running mate in 2000 in an effort to reassure voters who were made uneasy by Bush's thin national security résumé.

The ploy worked for Bush: Cheney, a stern former defense secretary who had overseen the first Gulf War, was celebrated by the media for his "gravitas" -- and he went on to score an unexpected victory in his vice presidential debate with Joe Lieberman. In the same way, Barack Obama hopes that the presence of Biden, a gray-haired 35-year veteran of the Senate who's on a first-name basis with numerous world leaders, will make it easier for voters to pull the lever for a presidential candidate who was a member of the Illinois state legislature less than four years ago.  read more »

THE DARK SIDE: THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW THE WAR ON TERROR TURNED INTO A WAR ON AMERICAN IDEALS
By Jane Mayer
Doubleday, 392 pages, $27.50

In the autumn of 2000, I was visiting the United States and watched the televised debates with keen interest. Of the four men—two presidential candidates and two running mates—the one I really took to was Dick Cheney. Maybe the competition wasn’t so strong, what with the inarticulate George W. Bush, the well-meaning but wooden Al Gore and the smirking Joe Lieberman. By contrast, Mr. Cheney seemed relaxed, bien dans sa peau, with a faraway smile playing on his lips as if to say, You mean you’ve just discovered that America is a plutocracy? Tell me about it!

What a long time eight years can seem: We have since been disabused of many illusions.  read more »

Many of the candidates most frequently linked to Barack Obama’s running-mate search are presumably interested in the vice presidency for the leg up it provides for a future White House campaign. But some of the other names making the rounds suggest something quite different: the Dick Cheney model.

Mr. Cheney is only the second elected vice president since the end of World War II to pass on waging a campaign of his own for the top spot. And he’s the first to do so voluntarily: Spiro T. Agnew fully intended to run in 1976, but a no-contest plea in late 1973 to tax evasion and money laundering charges – related to bribes he took while serving as Maryland’s governor in the late '60s – took him out of the picture.  read more »

Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani are among the special guests headlining the New York State Republican Committee annual dinner, which is taking place at 6 p.m. next Thursday at the Sheraton in Midtown.

In a public statement announcing the event, State Chairman Joe Mondello said:  read more »

On the night of Wed. April 16, comedian Mo Rocca walked across the stage in the spacious auditorium at the Hilton Washington on Connecticut Avenue in Washington D.C. and thanked several hundred reporters, politicians, and celebrities for showing up at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner.

"I know that the White House Correspondents' dinner in about 10 days gets most of the glory," said the ubiquitous political satirist and sometime MSNBC contributor. "I think of this one as sort of the Nicky to that one's Paris Hilton. This is sort of the Jamie Lynn to that dinner's Britney. Well that dinner is sort of like CNN. This one is MSNBC."  read more »

Dick Cheney will be a featured guest at an April 21 fund-raising lunch for Vito Fossella, the city’s only Republican congressman, a sign that the national Republican Party is putting in a major effort to hold onto the seat.

Fossella represents parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island. The event is taking place at 740 Park Avenue in Manhattan, at the home of Republican contributors David and Julia Koch

The invite, which a reader passed along, reminds guests to get there early “to allow for required security checks”:  read more »

This morning at 6am, Don Imus kicked off his new morning show on WABC. It didn't take long for him to get back to old business.

"Not much has changed,' said Mr. Imus, roughly thirty minutes into the program. "Dick Cheney is still a war criminal, Hillary Clinton is still Satan and I'm back on the radio!"

via FishbowlDC

The Pentagon has launched a preventive strike against a target that military chiefs presumably regard as one of the most active current threats to U.S. and world security—namely, the office of the vice president of the United States.  read more »

Governor Bill Richardson has found the day's most creative way to attack the Bush administration.

In an email his campaign just sent out to reporters titled "Governor Bill Richardson Statement on New England Patriots Spying Incident,"  Richardson is quoted as telling voters in Iowa today that "The President has been allowed to spy on Americans without a warrant, and our U.S. Senate is letting it continue. You know something is wrong when the New England Patriots face stiffer penalties for spying on innocent Americans than Dick Cheney and George Bush."

For all the author’s heroic mike-pointing, he delivers at best a two-dimensional portrait of a genuinely complicated statesman.  read more »