Jewish World Review Dec. 12, 2001 / 27 Kislev, 5762

Jules Witcover

Jules Witcover
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports

The elevated vice presidency

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com -- LAST Sunday, when Vice President Dick Cheney surfaced from his "undisclosed location" to be the featured guest on NBC's "Meet the Press," it was considered in television land to be an impressive "get," as bookers call bagging a prime guest for an interview show. They have been rumored to offer their first-born for such catches.

But, even if Cheney were not under presidential orders to make himself scarce most of the time for security reasons, he is on television's most-wanted list because he has come to be seen as the man closest to President Bush in decision-making and in implementation. This was the case well before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 dictated his confinement in what Cheney calls, in his well-known penchant for hilarious comments, his "cave."

Beyond that, the vice president's stature represents a remarkable development in the history of the office he occupies. It wasn't long ago when the vice presidency was the subject of endless derision and a job any political figure with a future avoided like a bad case of measles.

The first vice president, John Adams, recently resurrected in the best-selling biography by David McCullough, thought so little of the job that he wrote to his wife, Abigail, that "my country in its wisdom has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."

At the same time, however, Adams understood that under the presidential succession established by the Constitution, it was like buying a lottery ticket. "In this I am nothing," he observed, "but I may be everything." He did become president, but in his own right, only after George Washington made it through two terms.

Others, over succeeding years, have joked about the task of awaiting the fate of the president. Thomas Marshall, Woodrow Wilson's veep, said his job was "to ring the White House bell every morning and ask, 'What is the state of the health of the president?'" And when Wilson did indeed suffer a severe stroke, his wife would not even tell Marshall of its severity or permit him to see the president.

Wilson himself once said of the vice presidency that "the chief embarrassment in discussing this office is, that in explaining how little there is to be said about it, one has evidently said all there is to say." And FDR's first No. 2, John Nance Garner, dismissed it, in the sanitized version, as "a bucket of warm spit."

So how is it that Dick Cheney has now risen to such eminence? The man who picked him - after having asked Cheney to recommend the best choice - deserves much of the credit for selecting a vice president of broad government experience and a confidence-building demeanor. Bush also can take a bow for giving Cheney major responsibilities and letting the world know about it.

In addition, Cheney's own low-key style combined with decisiveness have made him seem more his own man than most earlier vice presidents, even as he has managed to convey a deferential manner toward the president under whom he serves.

But it took some cosmic events before the vice presidency itself was elevated to its present esteem. The knowledge that Harry Truman succeeded FDR without knowing that the atomic bomb was in development didn't immediately guarantee the choice of quality people in the second spot. Choices continued to be made to strengthen the ticket geographically or philosophically, itself a dubious notion.

Even capable vice presidents like Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey and Nelson Rockefeller were either ignored or treated like doormats in the job until Jimmy Carter brought Walter Mondale into the White House as a near-partner. It was a practice continued by Bill Clinton with Al Gore and one that the junior Bush also is now following.

The current President Bush may also have learned from his father's unhappy experience with his selection of the much-maligned Dan Quayle as his vice president. In any event, there is no question today that the vice presidency has come a long way since the days of John Adams, as seen in the almost exalted position in which the once-dismal office is now occupied by the elusive Dick Cheney.


Comment on JWR contributor Jules Witcover's column by clicking here.

12/07/01: September 11th and December 7th
12/05/01: Another children's crusade
12/03/01: Stall on campaign finance reform
11/30/01: Stall on campaign finance reform
11/28/01: More Justice Department folly
11/26/01: Ashcroft still under fire
11/21/01: Normalcy vs. security at the White House
11/12/01: Bush's latest pep talk
11/07/01: The blame game on airport security
11/05/01: Bellwether gubernatorial elections?
11/02/01: Feingold's complaint
10/31/01: Putting the cart before the horse?
10/29/01: Show business on economic stimulus
10/26/01: No political business as usual
10/24/01: Senatorial bravado
10/22/01: Split decision on gun rights
10/16/01: New York mayor's race: What kind of experience?
10/15/01: New York: Making a comeback
10/11/01: Giuliani: Fly in the election ointment
10/08/01: One or two New Yorks?
10/05/01: Providing your own security
10/01/01: Getting back to 'normal'
09/28/01: Muzzling the Voice Of America
09/26/01: Bush's transformation
09/24/01: Using a tragedy for a federal bailout
09/21/01: A view of tragedy at home from abroad
09/14/01: Script for AlGore's coming-out party
08/31/01: Scandal and privacy in politics
08/24/01: On replacing Helms
08/22/01: Politics takes a summer holiday
08/15/01: The resurfacing of AlGore
08/13/01: You can go home again
08/10/01: Governors' Conference drought
08/08/01: Governors defend their turf
08/06/01: New Bush muscle with congress
08/03/01: America's benign neglect
07/30/01: Where is the fear factor?
07/26/01: Dubya, Nancy Reagan and the Pope
07/23/01: Bush's congressional dilemma
07/19/01: Katharine Graham, giant
07/11/01: Finessing election reform
07/09/01: Listening to, and watching, Ashcroft
07/06/01: New comedian in the House (of Representatives)
06/27/01: Spinning Campaign Finance Reform's latest 'headway'
06/25/01: When Dubya says 'the check is in the mail,' you can believe him
06/22/01: The push on patients' rights
06/20/01: If you can't trust historians, how can you trust history?
06/18/01: World Refugee Day
06/13/01: Remembering 'Hubert'
06/11/01: Ventura faces government shutdown
06/06/01: McCain doth protest too much
06/04/01: Memo to the Bush daughters
05/30/01: Missing in action: Democratic outrage
05/30/01: Honoring World War II vets
05/23/01: Lauding the Nixon pardon
05/21/01: Messin' with McCain
05/18/01: A great movie plot
05/16/01: The level of public sensibility these days
05/14/01: "I am Al Gore. I used to be the next president of the United States"

© 2001, TMS