Looking forward - Will Cheney go?

All the big kids are linking to this Insight piece that suggests Cheney's departure is a done deal. I tend to believe it myself, and in fact I entered a pool a couple of weeks ago somewhere, predicting he'll step down on April 1, 2007 for "health reasons".

New York magazine however takes a more nuanced view and says it's not necessarily a done deal. They come up with some compelling reasons he might tough it out, his pending indictment in the Plame leak nothwithstanding, the primary one being pure stubborness. The louder the hoi polloi call for his resignation, the more likely he'll dig in his heels out of spite. Perhaps then we should keep beating that drum because I'm not so sure we want to give Bush a chance to pick his own successor.

More interesting though is the notion floated here that Jeb Bush could conceivably run in 08. The article quotes Grover Norquist on the subject.

“If Jeb Bush stepped into the race, I believe it would clear the field; it would be all over,” he says. “He’s the best governor in the country. And the argument against him running is that you can’t have a dynasty. But the one year when Jeb Bush can run and no one can seriously raise that argument is the year we’re running against Hillary Clinton.”

I've been on record for a long time against a Clinton candidacy myself but anybody who still needs a reason to be against an 08 ticket headed by Hillary, might want to hold on to that thought. It's the most compelling argument yet. A Clinton vs. Bush race will do nothing to ease the polarity that divides us now. In fact, it could only exacerbate it and distract us with yet another four years of culture wars at a time when our survival as a species depends on our finding comity as a nation.