Re: UnCheneyed Melody

Like Joe*, I'm also enjoying the Libby trial's revelations about the level of pettiness and backbiting at the White House in 2003. The spectacle has become a "Behind the Music" for the Iraq War (compared to Bob Woodward's more Ken Burns-ish approach): apparently the band was falling apart long before anyone knew.

The only person who's looking worse than Tim Russert is, of course, Cheney, whose concern with public perception and insistence on micro-managing make him the Madonna of this affair, but with bigger boobs. His increasingly clear involvement in a plan to if not "smear" than "rebut" Wilson makes this deliciously random rumor all the more tantalizing:

Dick Cheney will be stepping down as Vice President and will be replaced as Vice President by Condoleezza Rice. And now we're hearing that she would like to be on the ticket as the GOP VP candidate in '08.

Yes, it comes from -- ahem -- Comedy Central. But, as others remind us, CC was the news source that broke the Rumsfeld resignation story. All together now: Funny because it's true!

Putting Rice in the veep slot would be add yet another historic dimension to the race (Mormons, women, and blacks, oh my!), but surely her less-than-sterling record as Secretary of State and her marital-like closeness to both Bush and the war would make her a hard sell indeed.

*Who is on vacation! Get on a beach or slope, my friend!