Reading up on the prosecutor purge, I was suddenly struck by something: there's no sign of Cheney in this particular scandal. It seemed somehow simultaneously surprising and perfectly natural.
The surprise comes from the fact that Cheney seems to be at the head of most of the evil that this administration does. Torture, illegal wars, energy policy, kickbacks, no-bid contracts,
signing statements, unitary executive, abuse of intelligence, secret prisons, secrecy, lying to Congress and the American people, outing a CIA agent, generally subverting the law and the Constitution. And shooting his friend in the face.
But at the same time, his absence from the scene of the prosecutor purge makes a lot of sense and emphasizes some of the structure of the administration that has long been visible, but to which my attention, at least, has never been drawn.
The administration has two centers, two loci of power and wrongdoing. Simply put, I think they are Cheney and Rove. I'll bet this has been laid out in books, and I'm sure I've heard mention of it before - so I'm not claiming credit for the idea. But the two most prominent current scandals are exposing this polarity, perhaps revealing the fault zone along which this administration will fracture, possibly suggesting where we can best apply our energies to hurry that along.
On the one side, Cheney, Rice, Bolton, Feith, Rummy, Perle, the whole PNAC gang and their ilk. On the other, Rove, Gonzales, Miers, Ashcroft - the political team. And while there's plenty of overlap, it seems to me there are more differences than similarities between the groups and the crimes they engage in. I think maybe we're getting to a point where these groups can be played off against one another in a last-one-to-rat-out-the-other-goes-to-prison kind of a way. I hope so.