Questions for the Vice President

Time once again for...."News from Another Planet"

NEWSWEEK’s Richard Wolffe interviewed Dick Cheney on Jan. 25 in the West Wing of the White House.

Q. There has been little open support for the president's plan for extra troops in Iraq from the Republican Party. John Warner has obviously come out fairly strongly against it. Do you worry that the party has lost the stomach for the fight?

A. Well, I think—my sense of it is that the election results last November obviously represented a blow to our friends on the Hill, Republicans on the Hill—to go from majority to minority status. I think a lot of members were concerned or felt that their political fortunes were adversely affected by our ongoing operations in Iraq.

My sense of it is that what's happened here now over the last few weeks is that the president has shored up his position with the speech he made a couple of weeks ago, specifically on Iraq. And I think the speech, frankly Tuesday night, the State of the Union address was one of his best. I think there's been a very positive reaction of people who saw the speech. And I think to some extent that's helped shore us up inside the party on the Hill. (Huh? Which SOTU speech did Dick watch last week? Clinton's 99 speech? What is wrong with this man????)