Cheney Never Saw Veep Job Coming

Vice President Dick Cheney went back home this month and revealed what hooked him on public service. "Boys State triggered something," he says of the American Legion's youth government education group. Talking to Wyoming's current crop of Boys Staters, the veep says he attended in 1958 but never dreamed of becoming vice president.

"And," he says, "nobody who knew me then would have thought it, either." For the record, he says getting the job wasn't his idea, even though Cheney ran the veep search committee for W. "Running for my current job as vice president in 2000 was ... somebody else's idea. I was not a volunteer."

By Paul Bedard