Cheney's Undimmed Role (WashingtonPost.com) By Jim Hoagland
Thursday, February 10, 2005; Page A23

By his own laconic standards, Vice President Cheney has launched a major media campaign. He recently went on the Don Imus show. He then submitted to a televised Sunday morning cross-examination for the first time in 17 months. And he came armed with news-making phrases each time.

We'll get to those in a moment. But the true significance of Cheney's relative "burst" of interviews may lie in what they implicitly say about his role in George W. Bush's second term: Cheney is charging ahead with undiminished influence and unshakable self-confidence.
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It is still early to say that this state of affairs will continue through the next four years as midterm elections and the 2008 presidential race reshape the political terrain. But there is evidence in the first weeks of the second term to support two broad conclusions:

Pre-election speculation at the White House that Cheney's influence would wane as President Bush sought to show that he was his own master has proved to be at best premature. And the deep splits over the direction of policy on Iraq and other foreign problems have not vanished with Colin Powell's departure and Condoleezza Rice's arrival at the State Department.

These conclusions reinforce each other: Continued divisions over policy fortify Cheney as a center of gravity for Bush on choices of substance. And Cheney's views are so firmly held and starkly stated that they polarize debate within the administration.

(More ... Cheney's Undimmed Role (washingtonpost.com))  ¶ 19:37