War Czar Cheney?

President Bush, seeking to further speed the spread of Democracy in Iraq, has been looking for a "war-czar," someone to make sure that Bush's plan is faithfully executed. Dick Cheney, showing his immense leadership abilities, is turning some heads...

The Bush administration may have found that “war czar’’ it’s been looking for: Vice President Dick Cheney.

The vice president, who lapped the world in February with a tour that carried him through the rubble of Afghanistan’s capital and included a night at Bagram Air Base – where a suicide bomber killed several at the front gate during his stay – will depart next week for a tour of Middle East capitals and a review of U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf.

Cheney, who addressed U.S. troops in Japan aboard an aircraft carrier and addressed troops based on Guam earlier this year, will board the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis in the gulf.

In the midst of the White House’s quest for someone to oversee war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan – and with the announced departure today of another high-ranking official at the National Security Council – there is no one more adamant about prosecuting those wars than Cheney. And, while President Bush toured South America touting trade relations earlier this year and prepares for the G-8 Summit of major industrialized nations at a Baltic Sea resort in Germany in early June, it is Cheney who flies in and out of war zones this year.

And no one stands more ready to enforce the administration’s demands of other world leaders in the war against terrorism, as Cheney did when he was dispatched to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in February. A certain “senior administration official’’ was quoted upon departure from Kabul on that trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan as saying: “I've seen some press reporting says, 'Cheney went in to beat up on them, threaten them.' That's not the way I work. I don't know who writes that, or maybe somebody gets it from some source who doesn't know what I'm doing, or isn't involved in it. But the idea that I'd go in and threaten someone is an invalid misreading of the way I do business.''

When you think about leadership, it is hard to think of someone who symbolizes leadership better than Dick Cheney. And it is hardly surprising that when an important government position needs to be filled, Cheney's name would come to mind to fill that position. As President Bush's time in the White House unfortunately grows shorter, it is inevitable that people are going to begin to make a much bigger realization: that Cheney is the only person who is qualified to be the next President of the United States.