In New Book, Bush Admits He Considered Replacing Cheney

Yahoo News!
November 2, 2010

Former President George W. Bush says in a memoir scheduled to be released next week that he considered dumping Dick Cheney as vice president ahead of his 2004 re-election campaign, to prove that he, not Cheney, was running the show.

That's according to an advance copy of Bush's book, "Decision Points," obtained Tuesday by the New York Times' Peter Baker. Per Baker, Bush writes that it was actually Cheney who raised the idea of quitting the ticket. But the former president admits he took Cheney's idea seriously, in part because he was resentful of the common perception that Cheney was actually running things at the White House, and Bush was essentially working for him.

"Accepting Dick's offer would be one way to demonstrate that I was in charge," writes Bush, who says he spent several weeks exploring the idea of replacing Cheney with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

But ultimately Bush decided to stick with Cheney.

"The more I thought about it the more strongly I felt Dick should stay. I hadn't picked him to be a political asset; I had chosen him to help me do the job," Bush writes. "That was exactly what he had done."