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From their email - note how they mention the fear people have of talking:
Dick Cheney is our focus tonight; as he was of Maureen Dowd's column in The New York Times this morning. He was also on the cover of Newsweek magazine this week. Come to think of it, Mr. Cheney also adorned the cover of U.S. News & World Report just a couple of weeks back. Quick quiz! When's the last time you can remember a vice president of the United States getting this kind of attention? (And no, Dan Quayle's assault on single motherhood, as depicted on Murphy Brown, doesn't count).
My interest in understanding the genesis and nature of Mr. Cheney's unusual influence and power had its origin in one line of a newspaper story last summer. It stated that Ambassador Joe Wilson had been dispatched by the C.I.A. to the African country of Niger to look into reports that they were selling yellow cake uranium to Iraq. This mission was being undertaken "at the suggestion of the vice president's office." I began talking to a few Washington old-timers, asking if any of them remembered that kind of involvement in intelligence gathering by the vice president's office.
The more I asked, the more people I spoke with about Mr. Cheney's widespread influence, the more convinced I became that there was a fascinating story here.
It wasn't an easy one to piece together for television. People who were more than prepared to discuss the subject "off the record," recoiled at the idea of doing so in front of a television camera. There was clearly an element of fear involved. There are very few people in Washington, these days, who want to incur the displeasure of the vice president.
Clearly, the office has come a long way since the late John Nance Garner described it as not being worth "a warm bucket of spit." (Actually, he didn't use the word "spit;" but the word he used rhymes with it.)
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