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Veteran political analyst Charlie Cook on possible replacements for Dick Cheney:
As for John McCain, Cook said, “The Navy did not put McCain in a single-seat fighter for nothing.” He is not a team player. . . . Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel is another possibility; Cook described Hagel as “McCain without the personality disorder.”
“McCain without the personality disorder” is rather like dehydrated water.
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Besides, it was Hagel who put a Republican impimatur on the looney idea of reinstating the draft.
Why are so many people so obsessed with replacing Cheney? How many sitting veeps successfully moved directly into the White House via election, anyway? John Adams, Martin Van Buren, and … George Bush 41?
Any two-termers among them? No. Anyone bother to wonder why that is?
This whole topic just pushes my exasperation buttons something fierce. If Dan Quayle could even become veep — hell, if Al Gore could become veep — then Dick Cheney is no drag on the Bush ticket.
Replacing Cheney with Hagel was on my list of demands for supporting Bush’s reelection back in October. By my count, the administration has now fulfilled minus-two of my seven points.
Everyone seems to forget that the “far right” (whatever that means) was entirely unenthused about Bush’s 2000 nomination, and there were polls at that time suggesting that Pat Buchanan would receive 8-10 percent of the vote. The nomination of Cheney as VP was the smartest thing Bush could have done at that point, and given Bush’s record, losing Cheney now would likely mean that much of the conservative base would sit out the election.
I like McCain, self-aggrandizement and all. the man makes a lot of good sense and large swaths of the left respect him, a combo that is sorely needed in a war for the survival or continued success of western civ.
Hagel, last time I checked was had all of the same antisocial instincts without as much of the across the aisle charm (with voters), good sense or tv charisma.
