The Imperial Vice Presidency

For those of you not yet completely creeped out by that freak Darth Dick Cheney, the Washington Post is in the midst of a massive 4-part series detailing just how deep Cheney's influence goes, just how much of a fool he plays Dubya for, and just how brutal Cheney's assault on the Constitution -- not to mention the American people -- really is. Read it all and try to hold down yer lunch.

How much power does this Veep wield? Here's one excerpt from the Post series, courtesy of Kos:

Cheney has changed history more than once, earning his reputation as the
nation's most powerful vice president. His impact has been on public display in
the arenas of foreign policy and homeland security, and in a long-running battle
to broaden presidential authority. But he has also been the unseen hand behind
some of the president's major domestic initiatives.
Scores of interviews with
advisers to the president and vice president, as well as with other senior
officials throughout the government, offer a backstage view of how the Bush
White House operates. The president is "the decider," as Bush puts it, but the
vice president often serves up his menu of choices.
Cheney led a group that
winnowed the president's list of potential Supreme Court nominees. Cheney
resolved a crisis in the space program after the Columbia shuttle disaster.
Cheney fashioned a controversial truce between the legislative and executive
branches -- and averted resignations at the top of the Justice Department and
the FBI -- over the right of law enforcement authorities to investigate
political corruption in Congress.
And it was Cheney who served as the
guardian of conservative orthodoxy on budget and tax matters. He shaped and
pushed through Bush's tax cuts, blunting the influence of Federal Reserve
Chairman Alan Greenspan, a longtime friend, and of Cabinet rivals he had played
a principal role in selecting. He managed to overcome the president's
"compassionate conservative" resistance to multiple breaks for the wealthy. He
even orchestrated a decision to let a GOP senator switch parties -- giving
control of the chamber to Democrats -- rather than meet the senator's demand for
billions of dollars in new spending.

Then there's this, from Wonkette:

Ok, we’re pretty sure Bush is lying about something or other, but, uh… Dick?
What the hell are you doing? Just… creepily hanging out in the bushes? There’s a
press conference going on, for chrissakes! You’re freaking out poor Jessica
Yellin!
We are going to have nightmares about this for a week. The Vice
President is from a goddamn David Lynch dream sequence.
[Via TPM
Cafe, who somehow pretend this shit isn’t the scariest video they’ve ever
seen]

As well as this photo montage from Wonkette's "Creepy Cheney Image Database Archives ™"