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Likewise on economic policy, Cheney has not always been able to help Bush get his footing. Cheney's record at Halliburton made him slightly radioactive last spring, after the New York Times reported that Halliburton may have inflated its earnings, with a little help from Arthur Andersen. Shareholders have filed a lawsuit. Cheney's critics took great pleasure in sharing a six-year-old promotional video of Cheney that praises the accounting firm for work "over and above just the ... normal by-the-books auditing arrangement." If Bush was slow to grasp the toll that Enron and Tyco and WorldCom would take on investor confidence, Cheney was no help.
History is full of failed Presidents who become prisoners of their problems, but Bush doesn't appear to have that trait. While he was late to address the failings of his economic team, when he did, he shot everyone in sight. In the months before the massacre, Cheney had been meeting privately with people on the economy. Old friends told him that Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was not cutting it--a painful truth, since it was Cheney who had tapped him for the job. It was Cheney who finally called O'Neill to break the news that it was time to leave and who helped recruit John Snow to replace him, much to the relief of party elders. "Many of us wondered whether they lived in the real world," said a top Republican. "All summer and fall, we were asking ourselves, Do they think this war is going to take care of everything? Surely they know that if they can't move on the economy, the war is not going to get them through this. And then along they come and make a dramatic move, choose a couple of practical guys. They broke out."
Ever since Cheney and Bush came onstage together, people have seen in their partnership whatever they are looking for. The President's critics still view Bush as a puppet, his mouth wired to Cheney's brain. His fans see a man surrounded by big and confident personalities who is himself the most confident of all. The critics challenge the whole notion of pre-emption for its reckless means in pursuit of arrogant ends. Bush's allies note that he has still managed to sell it to the American people, who have never gone to war gladly but support his foreign policy generally. However anxious they may be, most Americans are inclined to give Bush the benefit of the doubt; they trust his motives and approve of his performance. In war, it's not enough for people to like Bush; they have to follow him, and for many, that's easier when he has Cheney marching at his side. --Reported by James Carney, John F. Dickerson, Michael Duffy, Douglas Waller/Washington and J.F.O. McAllister/London