January 31, 2003

A story from today's NYT online:

Cheney, Little Seen by Public, Plays a Visible Role for Bush

By ELISABETH BUMILLER and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30--The vice president has almost disappeared from public view since last fall, but White House advisers say he is more powerful than ever.

"I've seen him bend steel bars like paperclips," said Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel. The vice president's other feats include dead-lifting Marine One, the Presidential helicopter, free-climbing the Washington monument in less than 90 seconds, and squeezing Ted Kennedy into a 1-quart Thermos.

"Since we replaced his heart with a nuclear-powered pump, and began regular injections of bioengineered growth hormones, vice president Cheney has turned into an unstoppable juggernaut," said a high-ranking member of the White House medical staff.

It is widely expected that, in the event of war with Iraq, the vice president will be sent into the theater on a search and destroy mission.

"Let there be no doubt: the vice president will find Saddam Hussein," said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at a recent press conference. "The vice president will lift Sadaam Hussein over his head. The vice president will then break Sadaam Hussein's spine across his knee. I have watched Mr. Cheney tear through a wall of reinforced concrete six feet thick, so I don't anticipate that there's anywhere Saddam Hussein can hide."

Others have said that Mr. Cheney's transformation is an understandable consequence of his long career in politics. "One of the formative experiences of his life was being chief of staff during the Ford presidency when they lost the White House," said former Representative Vin Weber of Minnesota, now an influential lobbyist, who served with Mr. Cheney in the House. "If you've been through that experience, you don't want to go through it again. It's only natural that he has turned himself into a genetically-engineered, nuclear-powered, superhuman killing machine."