As the term ends, has Dick Cheney weakened the presidency?

Is Vice President Dick Cheney trapped in 1975?

And has his dedication to enhancing the power of the executive branch under President Bush resulted, at the end of their tenure, in a weakened presidency?

A quarter-century before he became vice president, Cheney was already an astute, close-in observer of executive power.

As Gerald R. Ford's chief of staff, he ran a hands-on operation from the office at the southwest corner of the White House West Wing just a few steps from the Oval Office.

It was during the immediate post-Watergate years of Ford's presidency, when the pendulum of political power had swung back to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Cheney drew from that experience the philosophy of far-reaching executive power that he took with him when he moved into the vice president's office (next door to his original office) in 2001.

Spencer Ackerman, writing on the website of the TPMCafe Book Club, argues that the vice president is so dedicated to enhancing executive power that "he either didn't notice or didn't appreciate the steady resurgence of executive authority during the Reagan-through-Clinton years."

It's an interesting observation about Cheney, a onetime professor of political science and a lifetime student of poli sci.

By overreaching, Ackerman maintains, Cheney is leaving office "having discredited, through example, the idea of unfettered executive supremacy."

-- James Gerstenzang

Photo: Dick Cheney with Gerald R. Ford in 1975. Credit: Associated Press