Kinder, softer, nicer, warmer - meet the cuddly Dick Cheney

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Kinder, softer, nicer, warmer - meet the cuddly Dick Cheney
By THOMAS M. DeFRANK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF
Sunday, February 1st, 2004

WASHINGTON - Dick Cheney, the vice president Bush-bashers love to hate, is trying for a makeover.
Old Cheney: President Bush's crown prince of darkness.

New Cheney: Wise, savvy, avuncular national asset.

Even his daughters think it's about time.

Cheney's rehab project has nothing to do with personal ego, but everything to do with Campaign 2004.

The vice president and senior Bush political advisers fret Cheney has become too much of a electoral liability and want to soften his persona to make him less of a target.

"They're trying to humanize him," a senior Bush official confirmed, referring to a spate of recent media interviews by the normally reclusive veep. "Even among Republicans, he's seen as Bush's dark side. His image needs lightening up."

Administration insiders told the Daily News the overhaul has been encouraged by Cheney's politically savvy daughters Liz and Mary, as well as Karl Rove, Bush's chief political guru.

"We want to make it harder for him to be the focus of attack by the Democrats," a senior Bush strategist acknowledged.

The centerpiece of Cheney's political face-lift was his second trip abroad as vice president. In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, he tried to heal the rift with European allies over Iraq. He also schmoozed with Pope John Paul, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, 10 influential European journalists, and U.S. troops and their families at two Italian bases.

Before leaving, he also gave a slew of interviews, including one for a puffy profile in The Washington Post's Style section.

Kevin Kellems, Cheney's press secretary, insisted, "There is no makeover," calling recent moves "an opportunity at the start of a new year to help reinforce the President's message."

Several sources said there's zero chance Cheney's political baggage could bounce him from the ticket. "Never going to happen," one said.

In his own way, however, Cheney has become as polarizing a figure as his boss - particularly because of his single-minded advocacy for taking out Saddam Hussein. "The public image is that he's at an undisclosed location twisting intelligence to justify going to war and talking to Don Rumsfeld on his secret decoder ring," said a top official who's a Cheney stalwart.

That's when, according to critics, he's not touting weapons of mass destruction that don't exist, defending greater government secrecy, allowing environmental pollution and greasing huge contracts for his former employer.

"You'd think Halliburton has changed its name to 'Dick Cheney's former company,' since that's the way every story written about them reads," a Bush political aide grumped.

The Democrats are gearing up to make Cheney a prime target. At last week's debate, Howard Dean charged that "Cheney went to the CIA ... sat with middle-level CIA operatives and berated them because he didn't like their intelligence reports."

Throughout a career spanning four decades, Cheney has guarded his privacy and shunned the limelight, so his suddenly higher media profile is notable.

"He perceives this as a tactical adjustment required by the changed circumstances of an election year," a friend said.