Second Banana Blues
Dick Cheney's qualifications for the vice presidency are growing faster than his waistline. Maybe even faster than his net worth.
The latest nuance in the serial saga, Dick Cheney: Public Servant, comes from The Dallas Morning News. Cheney's "hometown" paper discovered that the vice presidential nominee hasn't voted in 14 of 16 Dallas County elections since he registered to vote there in December 1995.
Such a demonstrated lack of civic involvement would ordinarily be a severe handicap for a national candidate. The Cheney camp doesn't see it that way at all. On the contrary, they feel Cheney's electoral abstinence is fine preparation for the office he seeks. One Cheney confidante who wished to remain anonymous told Reality Check: "Dick was waiting for a tie vote, so he could break it."
On the record, Cheney spokesman, Dirk Vande Beek (we didn't make that up, by the way) said Cheney "always voted" except when he was traveling overseas for Halliburton, the huge oilfield services company he ran from Dallas.
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Cheney's restraint from engaging in such activity shows an ability to conserve energy and focus on the big picture that will serve him well in the nation's number two job. And so does his refusal to get dragged into the mire of Republican primaries, state constitutional amendments, school board votes, and the other election issues he skipped. An interest in current events is clearly not an essential ingredient for the modern VP.
Cheney recently made public his gifts to charities over the past 10 years and that, too, tells much about his brave willingness to flaunt modern civic etiquette.
Cheney made $21.8 million in that period and gave $209,832 to charities. That's almost one percent of his income. Ouch. His wife donated another $89,500 in speaking fees, and corporate boards the Cheneys served on matched $142,820 of the couple's giving.
This skimpiness merely follows the trail courageously blazed by Al Gore. In 1997, sitting Vice President Gore earned $197,729 and gave just $353 to charity. Now that takes guts! It puts Cheney's one percent benchmark to shame.
Should we worry that Cheney has a rebellious, rakish streak that could be tricky for a umber two? Not at all. He has amply demonstrated the "yes man," "How high, Sir?" spirit a good executive branch subordinate needs, especially in the now-boring Adam Clymer episode. When W. declared the Times reporter a "major league" blankety-blank, Cheney, microphones be damned, showed some major league yes-man-ship with his, "Oh yeah, big time" response.
Ed McMahon would have been proud.