“Hear the Rumor on Cheney? Capital Buzzes, Denials Aside.” So blared the headline in last Thursday’s New York Times. In its continuing slide toward illegitimacy, the shady gray lady has now resorted to printing 1,200-word gossip columns on its formerly venerable front page:

The newest theory - advanced privately by prominent Democrats, including members of Congress - holds that Mr. Cheney recently dismissed his personal doctor so that he could see a new one, who will conveniently tell him in August that his heart problems make him unfit to run with Mr. Bush.

Times writer Elisabeth Bumiller is apparently unaware of her paper’s view that Mr. Cheney is a steely-eyed megalomaniac and a tyrant of unbounded proportions, if she believes that he would lower himself to such petty machinations in order to divest himself of the puppet that is George W. Bush. She continues:

The dismissed physician, Dr. Gary Malakoff, who four years ago declared that Mr. Cheney was "up to the task of the most sensitive public office" despite a history of heart disease, was dropped from Mr. Cheney's medical team because of an addiction to prescription drugs.

This sentence, which seems to contradict the former, fairly screams for a comma followed by, “not unlike that of Cheney supporter Rush Limbaugh.” Failing that, the article cites further speculation and innuendo designed to cause the President and his supporters’ knees to quake as a tsunami of Cheney-phobia buffets the GOP.

That has not happened and the only notable Republican to comment on the ‘buzz’ is Alphonse D’Amato; the man responsible for Chuck “Putzhead” Schumer’s seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and best known for singing “Old MacDonald’s Farm” on the Senate floor.

One might cut Senator Pothole some slack; speaking as he was, just days before he married his leggy, thirty-something honey. Far from being furious or drawn into the fray, George Bush reportedly said, "Tell him the president wishes him well on his wedding day."

No matter how the media wishes to spin this non-story, the VP angst seems to be emanating from the left. Acting as a shill for the better-hair ticket, a reporter told the president that John Edwards was being described as "charming, engaging, a nimble campaigner, a populist and even sexy." The reporter then asked, "How does he stack up against Dick Cheney?" In his non-nuanced way that drives all liberals crazy, Bush shot back, "Dick Cheney can be president. Next?"

Liberal sanity was further distressed with this from a recent Gallup Poll: “Despite the fairly constant 'buzz' in recent weeks about the possibility of President George W. Bush dumping Dick Cheney from the Republican presidential ticket, a review of recent polling evidence suggests that there is little support for such a change… If anything, the trends are in the opposite direction.”

Yet the beat goes on. On Saturday, from her seat in Never-Never-Land, Margaret Carlson of The Capital Gang chirped, “We're in the odd situation where Republicans secretly wish he would be dumped and Democrats pray he won't be.”

This can’t be more untrue or Democrat strategists have lost what little is left of their minds. It also flies in the face of Ms. Carlson’s colleagues’ efforts to the contrary. If the New York Times is forced to resort to tabloid tactics to influence public opinion toward a dump-Cheney effort, you can bet your bottom dollar that any prayers offered do not wish for his continued candidacy.

The truth is that liberals fear a Bush/ Cheney second term for the same reason that conservatives so desire it: Assuming that Cheney has no presidential aspirations, a double lame-duck team in the White House will be unfettered in pushing its agenda. This specter becomes even more frightening to the left if the GOP increases its Congressional majority as some predict.

And assuming no little girls choose to channel themselves through Mr. Edwards at the Vice Presidential debates, he will be alone and staring down the barrel of one Richard B. Cheney, locked and loaded for donkey.

Lisa Fabrizio