Interesting discussion on Daily Kos recently based on a Washington Post article claiming the GOP is looking for a way to replace Vice President Dick Cheney.

Several who know me can verify that this is something I predicted back in January. I was watching Meet the Press and the guests were David Brooks and Tom Friedman of the NY Times. The discussion was about Iraq. Brooks said he felt that President Bush would be given about 4-6 months to get things resolved. If a favorable resolution was not trending, then Bush would be visited by “men in blue suits”. Those Republican men would tell Bush that they would not allow him and his actions to pull down the Republican Party in the 2008 election and recommend the actions they wanted taken.

The scenario Brooks described sparked my own version of what I thought would happen. Today I’m updating those thoughts. Think back to Watergate in the 70’s. What really made the threat of impeachment real to Nixon was the replacement of Agnew by Ford. Ford was selected because he was someone the Congress as a whole could accept as President if push came to shove with Nixon.

That meeting Brooks described took place several weeks ago. The problem Republicans have is an obstinate Bush who believes he is right and impervious to action against him because (1) he doesn’t have to stand for re-election, (2) impeaching him means replacing him with Cheney, and (3) impeaching both Bush and Cheney is both a tremendous near impossible undertaking politically and even more repugnant to Republicans because it would result in Nancy Pelosi being President of the United States.

The best option, then, is to replace Cheney with someone acceptable to both Democrats and Republicans as a potential replacement for Bush until the end of Bush’s term. With that someone in place at Vice President, another visit can be made by the “men in blue suits”. Their message then will be, “Play ball with us or suffer the consequences, i.e. impeachment.”

To get the ball rolling, I think the blue suits have already been to see Cheney. Their message to him was equally stark. “You should claim health issues and resign. If you won’t do that, then Scooter Libby’s memory is going to improve tremendously. You are then indicted for malfeasance and face the threat of spending your last years in prison or suffering the ignominy of being impeached.” Given those threats, Cheney resigns, an acceptable replacement is found, George Bush is brought to heel and a reasonable solution is found for Iraq.

It could happen. Whether it happens is what makes watching politics so interesting.

Here’s the Daily Kos link. http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/26/61020/8043