TO: Sally Quinn, Washington Post

FROM: JASmius, Hard Starboard (C’mon, Sal, I’ve seen those hits from the Beltway, I know you’ve heard of me)

RE: The Great Cheney Switch

Don’t have a whole lot of time, so I’ll just toss this out there and see if it sticks.  How about Bush and Cheney switching jobs?  Free and clear?  Just like that?  You - oh, pardon me, “Republicans” - don’t want Big Time as veep anymore, and you - oh, I’m sorry, I meant to say YOU - want to get Dubya out of the Oval Office.  This kills two buzzards with one small meteorite.

Oh, yeah, I know, Cheney wouldn’t shove illegal immigration amnesty down the throats of his party’s base like Bush is, and his war policies would stop dithering and take the war to the mullahs like his boss should have four years ago (at least).  But think of the hunting mishap stories you can write!  You could reduce the Prince of Darkness to the reincarnation of Gerald Ford in a matter of weeks!  And, come on, admit it, wouldn’t you just love to see the Bush dynasty end the way it began - with the son marinating in the “bucket of warm spit” that his daddy served up twenty-eight years ago?

What’s that you say?  There are constitutional problems?  Well, heck, Sal, since when do dynamic movers & shakers like you and yours ever let that ancient piece of paper get in the way?  Besides, if you want Cheney out as veep, I doubt there’s any other Republican on the planet who has less to lose by succeeding him.  And you can’t tell me that you wouldn’t want to see George W. Bush go through confirmation hearings.  That’s got to be worth the price of admission alone.

The only other possibility would be for Cheney to leave and Bush just leaves the vice presidency vacant for his last year and a half.  Hey, John Tyler did it and nothing untoward transpired.  But if it did, well, you’d get your gal Crazy Nancy to keep the Big Chair warm for your other gal Hillary.

But even you wouldn’t really want something like THAT to happen.

Would you?