Conservatives Without Conscience

“Most Capitol Hill observers now regard Frist as ‘the weakest majority leader in perhaps 50 years,’” said Charles Cook, the editor of a nonpartisan political report, in an interview with Bloomberg News. Cook, who has one of the best records for predicting political contests, said he did not think that Frist “has a snowball’s chance in hell” of getting the GOP nomination. If Frist’s standing with his peers suffered, he also damaged his image as a clear-thinking man of medicine when he pandered to the religious right during the debate over Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman being kept alive by a feeding tube in a Florida hospital. After viewing videos prepared by a group supporting federal intervention to halt the withdrawal of life-support measures, Frist reported—as Dr. Frist—that Terri Schiavo was “not somebody in a persistent vegetative state.” Both the House and Senate passed a law granting a federal court jurisdiction in the case, and President Bush flew back to Washington to sign the emergency measure. The federal judge, however, agreed with the state judges who had reviewed, and rereviewed, all the expert testimony, and had refused to intervene. The court battle to keep Schiavo on life support eventually ended with her death, and an autopsy showed that she had been blind and that her brain had atrophied severely. Dr. Frist’s behavior in the incident was quite remarkable, given the simple message he had delivered to the Senate in his maiden speech on January 11, 1995, when he first came to Washington. “As a recently elected citizen-legislator, I carry a very distinct advantage: closeness to the people,” Frist explained. He had listened to people’s thoughts and concerns, and he shared them with his colleagues: “Get the federal government off our backs…. The arrogance of Washington is stifling us, and we are capable of making our own decisions.”[68]

The Authoritarian Vice Presidency: Evil Is Not Excluded

Dick Cheney is the most powerful vice president in American history. His power comes from his knowledge of how Washington really works, and it far exceeds that of the man he ostensibly works for. Unlike Bush, Cheney relishes the minutiae of government policy and process, and he has surrounded himself with a staff that is stronger and far more competent than the president’s personal staff. Unlike prior vice presidents, Cheney and his people have often taken the lead on issues, with the White House staff falling in line. Cheney has long been a behind-the-scenes operator, for he was badly burned by the news media during his tenure as White House chief of staff. His ego does not need the spotlight, and his dark view of the world and life is, in any case, better suited to working behind closed doors.

Notwithstanding Cheney’s claims that the powers of the presidency are insufficient to fight terrorism, the office has enormous inherent powers. And when it does not, the president traditionally goes to Congress to petition for whatever additional power is needed; no Congress is going to deny any president essential powers to protect the nation. Cheney, it seems, had been traumatized as Ford’s chief of staff when the Congress began dismantling Nixon’s imperial presidency. “In the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate,” Cheney told the Wall Street Journal, “there was a concerted effort to place limits and restrictions on presidential authority…the decisions that were aimed at the time at trying to avoid a repeat of things like Vietnam or…Watergate.” For most people adopting such measures would be considered good government; Cheney believes otherwise. “I thought they were misguided then, and have believed that given the world that we live in, that the president needs to have unimpaired executive authority.”[69] He has repeated that line time after time, without ever explaining exactly why the post-Watergate measures were misguided, or why efforts by Congress to prevent another Vietnam, which took some fifty thousand American lives for no good purpose, were faulty. Since Cheney has been vice president he has never been interviewed by a reporter inclined (or permitted) to ask the hard questions, so Cheney has never had to explain himself. The man he works for looks only at the politics of any given matter, and does not have the depth of knowledge to challenge his vice president. Cheney’s relationships with his staff and his informal advisers in and out of government are ones in which the vice president poses the questions, and he is never required to give answers. When Cheney speaks publicly—which is not often—he pontificates, or dictates.