The article is not explicit, but an underlying theme of the Washington Post’s profile on Dick Cheney is that his unprecedented power is only possible because Bush is anxious to get out of the way.

Waxing or waning, Cheney holds his purchase on an unrivaled portfolio across the executive branch. Bush works most naturally, close observers said, at the level of broad objectives, broadly declared. Cheney, they said, inhabits an operational world in which means are matched with ends and some of the most important choices are made. When particulars rise to presidential notice, Cheney often steers the preparation of options and sits with Bush, in side-by-side wing chairs, as he is briefed.

Before the president casts the only vote that counts, the final words of counsel nearly always come from Cheney.

“Side-by-side wing chairs”? I’m reminded of the embarrassing point in 2004 in which the President agreed to talk to the 9/11 Commission, but only if Cheney could sit with Bush, and help answer questions, during the discussion.

In 2000, when Bush, an inexperienced governor in a state where the governor has limited power, sought the presidency, his supporters insisted the nation need not worry — Bush had assembled a team of capable “advisors” who would help guide his hand.

What the equation didn’t consider is what happens when the advisors disagree and the President has to make a decision. As the Post’s profile makes clear, Bush has spent the better part of the last six years simply going along with Cheney’s demands. Dan Quayle characterized this as Cheney taking on the role of “surrogate chief of staff.” The reality is more disconcerting — Cheney has routinely been the “surrogate President,” with Bush putting his signature on the VP’s ideas (military commissions, domestic warrantless-searches) because the VP told him it was the right thing to do.

Indeed, when it came to ignoring the Geneva Conventions, Cheney made his decision before Bush did.

On Nov. 14, 2001, the day after Bush signed the commissions order, Cheney took the next big step. He told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that terrorists do not “deserve to be treated as prisoners of war.”

The president had not yet made that decision. Ten weeks passed, and the Bush administration fought one of its fiercest internal brawls, before Bush ratified the policy that Cheney had declared: The Geneva Conventions would not apply to al-Qaeda or Taliban fighters captured on the battlefield.

Meet George W. Bush, the not-so-innocent bystander of his own presidency.

On “Meet the Press” this morning, David Broder, who’s been having a rough year, blamed Democrats for the failures of the immigration reform bill.

“Well, the Democrats have taken the position that they now will do with the nation’s business. And if they’re not doing that business, and clearly the immigration issue is very much on people’s mind, I think they will suffer the same consequences that the Republicans suffered a year ago. People are fed up with seeing Washington bickering, fighting, infighting and never dealing with the issue.”

This strikes me as wrong for two reasons. First is the obvious problem with the observation: blaming Senate Dems for failing to pass the immigration bill is kind of silly. Dems worked with the White House on a compromise, brought the bill to the floor, and about four-in-five Senate Dems voted to support it. In contrast, 85% of the Senate GOP caucus voted against it, and the president apparently couldn’t move a single Republican vote. Broder finds Reid, Durbin, & Co. a convenient scapegoat, but if he’s looking for a party to blame, he’s got the wrong one.

Second is Broder’s notion that Dems are failing to do “the nation’s business” because the immigration bill died (or, at a minimum, is on life support). His analysis is over-simplified to the point of comedy: “people” want Congress to “deal with” immigration, and they’re “fed up” with the “fighting.” Broder’s colleague, Dan Balz, recently offered a similar assessment.

Regrettably, this is congressional analysis at its most vapid. Broder, neither today nor in print, actually explained what he’d like Congress to do about immigration; he just thinks lawmakers should do “something.”

But therein lies the rub: immigration policy is kind of complicated, and different people want it “fixed” in different ways. Broder’s position seems to be, “Fix the problem by passing a new policy.” But which policy? What’s the “problem” that needs fixing? Does Broder blame Senate Dems because they didn’t pass Bush’s bill, or because they didn’t embrace a more conservative approach to the issue?

Broder doesn’t say, but he’s “fed up” anyway.

A couple of weeks ago, E.J. Dionne had a column in which he explained, “There is the unspoken assumption that wisdom always lies in the political middle, no matter how unsavory the recipe served up by a given group of self-proclaimed centrists might be.”

Broder might want to read it.

Ross Douthat has an interesting item on American religiosity in the Atlantic.

In the United States, the Bush era has summoned up — arguably for the first time in this country’s history — a mass secularism that looks to Europe and sees a model for America to follow. […]

America’s secular turn actually began in the 1990s, though it wasn’t until 2002 that two Berkeley sociologists first noticed it. In a paper in the American Sociological Review, Michael Hout and Claude S. Fischer announced the startling fact that the percentage of Americans who said they had “no religious preference” had doubled in less than 10 years, rising from 7 percent to 14 percent of the population.

This unexpected spike wasn’t the result of growing atheism, Hout and Fischer argued; rather, more Americans were distancing themselves from organized religion as “a symbolic statement” against the religious right. If the association of religiosity with political conservatism continued to gain strength, the sociologists suggested, “then liberals’ alienation from organized religion [might] become, as it has in many other nations, institutionalized.” (emphasis added)

I haven’t reviewed the Hout/Fischer report in any real detail, but a large jump in the rates of those who claim no religious preference is rather unusual, particularly in light of claims, such as those from the president, that we’re in the midst of a “Third Awakening” of religious devotion in the United States.

I suspect there are a variety of explanations for the incremental increase. Perhaps it’s geo-political — with America’s enemies overseas being religious extremists, maybe more people are becoming secular. Perhaps the increased openness on the part of non-believers (i.e., best-selling books from Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens) makes people more comfortable in acknowledging spiritual doubts.

But if the Hout/Fischer analysis is right, and more people are turning away from organized religion because they’re just so repulsed by the Dobson/Robertson crowd, well, that’s just hilarious.

Bill O’Reilly was the featured speaker at the National Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSNC) conference on Friday, where he, I kid you not, complained about opinionated news dissemination.

O’Reilly contended that many newspapers are losing circulation because they’ve allowed the “liberal” ideology of their editorial pages to “bleed into news coverage” — despite, he said, there being a greater number of “traditional conservatives” than liberals in the American population.

Yes, if there’s one thing O’Reilly and his network understand, it’s the importance of keeping a clear distinction between news reporting and opinion journalism.

Rudy Giuliani’s claim that he blew off his commitment to the Iraq Study Group to avoid politicizing the panel’s work doesn’t stand up well to scrutiny, but in case there was any doubt, even Tim Russert is helping debunk the bogus rationalization.

On Meet The Press this morning, host Tim Russert offered more evidence that politics was not an issue in Giuliani’s decision to leave the ISG. “Several commission members have said to me that presidential politics never entered the discussion,” said Russert. “It was all about Giuliani’s schedule and commitments versus showing up for the Iraq Study Group.” […]

As PBS’s Gwen Ifil pointed out, the important work of the Iraq Study Group should have come before any political considerations. “Even if it were his presidential ambitions,” said Ifill. “Is that really a good answer that you were so political that you rather focus on politics than focus on the nation’s security?”

Just another reason to believe this flap will stick to Giuliani like tar.

As pathological as Dick Cheney comes across in today’s much-discussed Washington Post profile, our notorious Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, hardly comes across looking good. (Barton Gellman and Jo Becker confirm that the president calls his long-time friend “Fredo.”)

For example, we’ve long believed that Gonzales was responsible for the infamous memo that dismissed the Geneva Conventions as “quaint,” and characterized Colin Powell as a defender of “obsolete” rules. Today’s piece explains that Gonzales didn’t even write his own memo; Cheney general counsel David Addington did.

This graf seems to capture the internal White House dynamic.

Gonzales, a former Texas judge, had the seniority and the relationship with Bush. But Addington — a man of imposing demeanor, intellect and experience — dominated the group. Gonzales “was not a law-of-war expert and didn’t have very developed views,” [John] Yoo recalled, echoing blunter observations by the Texan’s White House colleagues.

So, on top of everything we’ve already learned with regards to Gonzales’ on-the-job performance, we now also learn that our AG was looked down upon by his White House colleagues, and was given a nickname belonging to the feeble, incompetent brother from The Godfather.

It inspires confidence in the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, doesn’t it? Maybe he’s been in the wrong job all along.

It seemed as though Chris Matthews’ election analysis hit rock bottom a couple of weeks ago when he expressed an inordinate interest in Fred Thompson’s odor.

But it turns out, his reports can still manage to get a little more troubling.

On the June 24 edition of the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show, during a discussion about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), host Chris Matthews asked Kathleen Parker, a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group, if “being surrounded by women” makes “a case for commander in chief — or does it make a case against it?” […]

Asked by Time managing editor Richard Stengel, “What are you suggesting by asking does this diminish her as a commander in chief by being surrounded by women?,” Matthews replied: “No, the idea that it — well, let me just get historic. We’ve never had a woman commander in chief.”

As a follow-up to his question, Matthews said: “But isn’t that a challenge, because when it comes down to that final decision to vote for president, a woman president, a woman commander in chief, will be an historic decision for people. Not just men, but women as well.” Turning to New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, Matthews added: “Elisabeth, you’re always thinking about these things.” Bumiller referred to Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher — women who were elected to lead Israel and the United Kingdom — and said: “[W]e all remember these women…. I think we can get there.” Matthews responded, “But we’ve got Patton and John Wayne on our side.”

As Atrios put it, “It’s one thing to project misogyny onto the public-at-large and question whether they’re willing to support a woman for president, it’s quite another to question whether the mere presence of women makes one unfit to be president.”

Today’s Must Read: next up in The Washington Post‘s series on Cheney’s vice presidency, how he and his allies made torture (sorry, “cruelty”) the rule.

New York Times digs deep into Rupert Murdoch’s sprawling media empire and political network. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Morning Roundup.

A reporter finally gets a chance to ask Karl Rove whether he played any role in the Justice Department’s prosecution of Don Siegelman, the Democratic former governor of Alabama.