The Long, Hard Autumn of Dick Cheney

摘要

The signs, apparent to insiders for months, surfaced at a quick clip. Vice President Dick Cheney, once viewed as training wheels for a President who was a novice on the world stage, was becoming less essential. He disappeared to a new weekend place in Maryland, and friends fretted about his weight. Katrina hit, and he tarried at his home in Wyoming, checking in by videoconference. Harriet Miers was picked for the Supreme Court, and he found out secondhand. On Capitol Hill last week, the Republican Party was coping with an impasse over spending cuts and the fallout from an embarrassing loss in the Virginia Governor's race, and he was in South Dakota for a week of pheasant hunting. "I just haven't seen him around as much lately," said Sam Brownback, the conservative Republican Senator from Kansas.