Bush/Cheney was America's first regency government .

[chieftain]

Clearly Dick thought the real order was Cheney/Bush. Today's WaPo story cited the VP's realization during the second term that his charge was exhibiting growing "independence". This statement is the most telling part of the report. During his exhaustive search for a suitable VP, Cheney came to the conclusion that W was completely unsuited for the intellectual rigors of the job. Rather than scuttling the effort to foist this callow adult on the populace, he saw this to be his only chance to be president, if not in name then in reality.
The Supreme Court imposed upon the country the first regency in American history. The boy president could ride his bike, cut his brush and mangle the English language. The regent would wield all the real clout. He would use this readily ceded authority to reshape the US into his paranoid fantasy of a unified and all powerful executive ruling a newly martially invigorated imperial nation.
The failure of Dick's policies and the intervention of Poppy's friends ruined the VP's vision. The fall out from the brewing Bush Family/Cheney family feud is going to be very interesting.

[Sanity Claws]

1. First implies there will be others

I hope that now everyone knows who/what C Street is, the game is up.

[Xipe Totec]

2. I feel sad for any freepers who read your post

they would have to consult a dictionary to figure out what a regent is.

If only they knew what a dictionary was.

[chieftain]

3. Too funny, too true. n/t

[ashling]

4. George II was under the thumb of

Cardinal Bitchalieu

[chieftain]

6. LOL n/t

[madamesilverspurs]

5. Second.

Reagan/Bush was first. For twelve years Poppy was in the White House.

[sofa king]

7. There are some precedents.

After President Wilson's debilitating stroke in 1919, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson effectively took over the Presidency for her husband by claiming to be able to understand what he was saying when others could not. She always claimed that she only decided what was important enough to bring to Woodrow's attention (which is a powerful position to be in all by itself), but others claim that Woodrow had lost most of his cognitive abilities and Edith's position as "interpreter of his wishes" was really a front for total control.

After stealing the election of 1876 (the first of many Republican election theft attempts, successful and otherwise), Rutherford B. Hayes complained bitterly about the debt he owed to the party bosses who pulled off the theft. He received almost daily instruction from them, was not permitted to name his own cabinet members, and was not allowed to formulate policy without the prior consent of his invisible masters.

After Vice President Martin Van Buren won the office, he inherited General Jackson's cabinet and policies. Once he began to assert his own authority and began to tone down the Jacksonian preferences for war and territorial expansion, he was effectively written off by his party and doomed to be defeated in the following election.

Edit: And then there was Reagan, who was stupid and falling into senescence and controlled by a criminal cabal. I believe it was his Presidency which served as the model for the Bush years, and I believe that Bush was chosen specifically because he too is stupid in addition to being a narcissist. The larger the crimes envisioned, the dumber the figurehead President has to be to allow the crimes to occur.

Hence, Sarah Palin.