The Vampire

The Washington Post initiates a 4 part series on him today.

Over 200 people were interviewed for it (though, of course not the vamp-in-chief himself). A photo gallery of the players, etc. are included. Major piece for the WaPo.

[ Dick Cheney is the most influential and powerful man ever to hold the office of vice president. This series examines Cheney's largely hidden and little-understood role in crafting policies for the War on Terror, the economy and the environment.

Today: Part 1 Working in the Background: A master of bureaucracy and detail, Cheney exerts
most of his influence out of public view.

Monday: Part 2 Wars and Interrogations: Convinced that the “war on terror” required “robust interrogations” of captured suspects, Dick Cheney pressed the Bush administration to carve out exceptions to the Geneva Conventions.

Tuesday: Part 3 Dominating Budget Decisions: Working behind the scenes, Dick Cheney has made himself the dominant voice on tax and spending policy, outmaneuvering rivals for the president’s ear.

Wednesday: Part 4 Environmental Policy: Dick Cheney steered some of the Bush administration’s most important environmental decisions — easing air pollution controls, opening public parks to snowmobiles and diverting river water from threatened salmon. ]

From today's, the first installment:

[ Just past the Oval Office, in the private dining room overlooking the South Lawn, Vice President Cheney joined President Bush at a round parquet table they shared once a week. Cheney brought a four-page text, written in strict secrecy by his lawyer. He carried it back out with him after lunch.

In less than an hour, the document traversed a West Wing circuit that gave its words the power of command. It changed hands four times, according to witnesses, with emphatic instructions to bypass staff review. When it returned to the Oval Office, in a blue portfolio embossed with the presidential seal, Bush pulled a felt-tip pen from his pocket and signed without sitting down. Almost no one else had seen the text.

Cheney's proposal had become a military order from the commander in chief. Foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States were stripped of access to any court -- civilian or military, domestic or foreign. They could be confined indefinitely without charges and would be tried, if at all, in closed "military commissions."

"What the hell just happened?" Secretary of State Colin L. Powell demanded, a witness said, when CNN announced the order that evening, Nov. 13, 2001. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, incensed, sent an aide to find out. Even witnesses to the Oval Office signing said they did not know the vice president had played any part. ]