Niall Ferguson on the "trigger-happy Dick Cheney"
The Harvard history professor weighs in:
Hunting trips occasionally change the course of history. Trotsky's decision to go duck-shooting instead of attending Lenin's funeral gave Stalin the perfect opportunity to begin his political marginalisation. Cheney's trip to the Armstrong ranch has had the opposite effect. Far from marginalising the Vice-President, it has brought him centre-stage - his least-favourite location.
At some point, when the history books get written, the question will have to be asked: Was George W Bush the 43rd President of the United States, or was it actually Dick Cheney? Serious analysts of American politics generally discount the idea that the President is merely a puppet whose strings the Vice-President pulls...
...Man was born free, wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but he is everywhere in chains. George W Bush was born freer than most. But he is everywhere in Cheney...