Cheney will never be "dumped"

The Associated Press is reporting that Cheney has announced that he intends to run for Vice President again in the November elections. He was asked in an interview for C-Span if he could imagine a situation in which he would step down in favour of another of another VP candidate:

"Well, no, I can't. If I thought that were appropriate, I certainly would. But he's made it very clear that he wants me to run again. The way I got here in the first place was that he persuaded me four years ago that I was the man he wanted in that post, not just as a candidate, but as somebody to be part of the governing team. He's been very clear he doesn't want to break up the team."

However the New York Times reports on a rumour (that it acknowledges as "as ingenious as it is far-fetched") that,

"Cheney recently dismissed his personal doctor so that he could see a new one, who will conveniently tell him in August that his heart problems make him unfit to run with Mr. Bush."

There is, of course, no chance that the Bush administration would dump Cheney. The only way Cheney would leave is by his own choice. Cheney is the most powerful individual in the executive government, and history's most influential vice-president. Cheney knows where all the bodies are buried -- can you imagine a Richard Clarke-style tell-all memoir by Cheney, especially a pissed off one? The GOP would never risk it.