how did Cheney become so powerful?

[Ned_Devine]

[JeffR]

1. The classic combination:

Good looks, charisma and a sunny disposition.

[Greyhound]

24. The classic combination:

Revolving door between government, K street, and industry.

Get elected to office.

Pick up a bunch of lobby friends from the industries your committees regulate.

Leave office and take a job with said company, make a couple million.

Take political appointment to push through contracts and further deregulate your industry.

Take executive position and directors seat in newly profitable company.

Repeat as often as you like.

Rumsfeld did it just the same way, as did the man behind the curtain, James Baker III.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Same way the farmer in Daniel Webster did?

[MADem]

3. Power abhors a vacuum, perhaps?

And there ain't nuthin' between the Monkey's ears....

[SharonAnn]

14. He was powerful before that.

[MADem]

18. I'm suggesting he filled the void between those ears, and always has NT

[mike_c]

4. enthrallment....

He is undead, probably over a thousand years old, and he has been patient.

[Bad Penny]

22. I agree

evil long term goals and being able to pace himself. Most people would have burned out or lost interest out of frustration, but Cheney (and Rumsfeld too) have shown a knack for stamina and longevity. They're the worst kind of evil politician...tenacious, patient and with far sighted agendas.

[Dragon Turtle]

5. A pact with some evil entity.

[Jcrowley]

6. History

Richard Cheney - the son of an official at the Agriculture Department, was raised in the State of Wyoming. Enrolled in the University of Yale, he dropped out the University after two years. By that time, he wanted to work and “see the world”. So, for a while, he set to install electric lines in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, before going back to his studies in the University of Wyoming. He married Lynne Vincent, his youth love, and set out for taking a doctorate in Political Sciences at the University of Wisconsin. When called in to the army to enroll the lists for the Vietnam War, he was given a leave for his students status and later for being a family man. Effectively, his daughter Elizabeth was born in 1966.

A member of the U.S. Association of Political Sciences, he was promoted to Washington in 1968 with the possibility of working for a Congress member. He tried to make an appointment with Donald Rumsfeld, but the latter did not receive him. He then started to work for William Steiger from Wisconsin. When Rumsfeld got the chairmanship of the Office of Economic Opportunity, Cheney tried to contact him again, being successful that time. This way, Cheney became Rumsfeld’s first assistant in Washington for seven years. But this collaboration was not continuous: in 1973, when Donald Rumsfeld took on the position of U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Cheney availed himself of the license granted him to work for a while for Bradley, Woods & Company - a specialized advisory society in the field of finances.

First stay in the White House

That was nothing but a parenthesis. Cheney had already passed his tests and when in 1974, Rumsfeld was nominated the White House Secretary General by Gerald Ford, he naturally summoned his former assistant to his side to play the same role, this time in the very heart of power. Dick Cheney had before him his life’s opportunity and did not let it go. A tireless worker, he took care, for more than one year, of settling the most trivial administrative troubles, from the White House plumbing to the little pad of the presidential copter, even solving the delicate problems of the salaries... the result: Cheney became omnipresent, controlled all the secrets in the White House and very soon was able to prepare political operations of great magnitude.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article30114.html

[Ned_Devine]

11. Thank you

[JohnnyLib2]

7. "Nature abhors a vacuum" --

He's been working to create his version of the world for decades -- and he's paired with the Doonesbury hat. He's also had 6 years to expand his power. EXTREME:sarcasm:

EDIT: Sorry, just saw the quote already posted.

[AlamoDemoc]

8. A joke: If you graduated from Yale as a Cheerlealer....your stuck in Iraq

[havocmom]

9. James Baker appointed him Sheriff of Nottingham

and told him to keep all the grand lords safe from the rabble in the woods.

[NRaleighLiberal]

10. Infrequent changes of shirts, poor air circulation in the bunker....powerful,

like a strong cheese.

[Old and In the Way]

12. Lack of conscience.

He's planning on taking his riches with him.

[SharonAnn]

15. Bingo!!!! I think that's the real reason.

[MannyGoldstein]

13. Did You Ever See The Movie "Being There"?

'nuff said.

[Ned_Devine]

19. Peter Sellers? Chance the gardener, aka Chauncey Gardner

That movie? How does that relate?

[MannyGoldstein]

21. Cheney is Crazier Than A Shithouse Rat

A friend of mine is a very good psychologist. he tells me that Cheney is clinically paranoid - textbook case, quite bonkers. Like Chance the Gardner, his nutty ravings were mistaken for genius. But they were nothing more than nutty ravings.

[Mnemosyne]

16. His aim. n/t

[grasswire]

17. remember, he vetted all the GOP leadership

...when he was in charge of finding the vice presidential candidate. He had background checks on all of them, and interviews where they spilled anything that might be potentially embarrassing -- and then having all those dossiers tucked away, he picked himself!

Also, I suspect that he has been using the surveillance capabilities liberally to increase his power. Information = power.

[sarahlee]

20. Corporate pupett master?

[slater71]

23. Because Bush was so fucking stupid and needed a sitter.