Just how much of our current difficulties with this Presidency are really problems with the Vice Presidency?

In his Park Avenue corner suite at Cerberus Global Investments, Dan Quayle recalled the moment he learned how much his old job had changed. Cheney had just taken the oath of office, and Quayle paid a visit to offer advice from one vice president to another.

"I said, 'Dick, you know, you're going to be doing a lot of this international traveling, you're going to be doing all this political fundraising . . . you'll be going to the funerals,' " Quayle said in an interview earlier this year. "I mean, this is what vice presidents do. I said, 'We've all done it.' "

Cheney "got that little smile," Quayle said, and replied, "I have a different understanding with the president."

Someday in the future history will finally sort out exactly what happened in this Presidency and how much was caused by the incompetence of George Bush and how much was the fault of the "Machiavellian" Dick Cheney. That is if Cheney has not destroyed all evidence that he ever existed at all by then.

I know I will anxiously await those disclosures.

If you can take it there is even more about Cheney's influence here.