The Secret Plot to Dump Dick Cheney
Description: Email rumor
Circulating since: Sep. 2000
Status: False (updated)
Summary: Forwarded email describes a secret plan by the Republican Party to replace Bush's chosen running mate, Dick Cheney, with a last-minute ringer.
Email example contributed anonymously, Sep. 26, 2000:
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I just heard a rumor from a good source. The Republican party is feeling that Cheney is a liability on the ticket. There's a rumor that a few weeks prior to the election in a desperate attempt to win, Cheney will resign because of a trumped up heart problem or potential "threat to his health."
Then either John McCain or Colin Powell will be asked to come on the ticket and save the party. This move is afoot in top circles and to try to squelch it PLEASE send this letter to as many people as you can. If we get the rumor out on the internet, they won't be able to do their calculated move without repercussions. |
Comments: Let there be no doubt, it is a presidential election year in the U.S.A. We are drowning in news and commentary. Never mind that half of the electorate won't turn out to vote; for the media it's a talking-heads Olympics. Whatever the cause of voter apathy may be, it's certainly not a shortage of information.
And now, of course, there is the Internet.
The good news about democracy in the wired age is that the flow of information is decentralized and less susceptible to orchestration. The bad news is that there's no such thing as automated fact-checking, so it's up to individuals to filter the true from the false themselves. Disfinformation abounds.
If you travel in the right -- or should I say, wrong -- email circles, you will have read, for example, that Governor G.W. Bush is anathema to black voters because he's responsible for the closure of black colleges in Texas (not true); and that Al Gore mixed up his Bible verses during a speech and declared his favorite passage to be: "And they will do this because they have not known the Father nor Me" (also false). You'll have read that Bush has family ties with Nazism and that Gore once claimed, "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." The former is a baseless smear, the latter a fabricated quote originally attributed to Dan Quayle.
October surprise
And now this: an email describing a secret plan by the Republican Party to replace Bush's chosen running mate, Dick Cheney, with a last-minute ringer.
"There's a rumor that a few weeks prior to the election in a desperate attempt to win, Cheney will resign because of a trumped up heart problem or potential 'threat to his health' . . . Then either John McCain or Colin Powell will be asked to come on the ticket and save the party."
This is the point at which I'd normally say -- if I could -- that I have spoken to Bush campaign officials and they deny all this.
Unfortunately, they won't return my phone calls.
Not that it really matters. After all, this is a secret plan, supposedly -- meaning the Bush folks would surely deny it even if it were true. Conspiracy theories are naturally immune to debunking.
We can at least apply a little logic to it, beginning with the question, How often does an email that says "Please send this to as many people as you can" turn out to be true? The answer, as any frequent visitor to this site knows, is practically never.
Why replace Cheney?
How plausible is it that the Bush campaign would replace Cheney in the waning hours of the campaign to, quote, "save the party?" Opinion polls give him an approval rating comparable to Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman. He's also a phenomenal fundraiser. It's clear why Democrats don't like Cheney, but why would Republicans consider this man a liability?
More to the point, Cheney was known to have a history of heart disease when he was nominated. It wouldn't reflect well on G.W. Bush's decision-making abilities if Cheney bowed out now due to illness. The Democrats would make sure of that.
Besides, didn't Colin Powell reportedly turn the nomination down already? Does anyone really believe George W. Bush and John McCain could see eye-to-eye long enough to make it to election day together?
Inspired by a cartoon?
There is one piece of hard evidence against the veracity of this rumor, inconclusive but noteworthy. It appears that the scenario now circulating by email may have originated in a comic strip published nationally on August 10, a month-and-a-half ago. (Some people have reported hearing the rumor by word of mouth before that date, but at the very least the cartoon kicked it up a notch.) The strip is called Tom the Dancing Bug and is written by Ruben Bolling.
The installment in question (view it at Salon.com) was entitled "The Perfect Strategy" and opens with a character opining, "Yeah, Cheney is a terrible pick for the vice president nomination. But he's the perfect pick for what they really have in mind." He then extols the virtues of Colin Powell, noting the general's stated aversion to campaigning. Thus, the character continues, the Republicans chose another nominee to do the dirty work, and "Then, when the election's around the corner, oops! Cheney's got a health issue! What patriotic American can step in at the last minute? It's foolproof!"
Foolproof? Only in 'Toontown, I say. Here's hoping reality doesn't prove me wrong. 
Sources and further reading:
VP Candidate Favorability Ratings
From PollingReport.comHeart Troubles in Cheney's Past
From ABCNews.com
Media sightings:
Internet Rumor Says Cheney to Bail. Yeah, Right.
Village Voice, September 27, 2000
Last updated: 09/16/08
