GOP Weighs Hollywood Ending for Cheney

GOP decision-makers are so fed up with Dick Cheney that they've been searching for a replacement, without much success—until recently. In an op-ed in today's Washington Post, inveterate insider Sally Quinn lays out an ingenious plan: Use heart surgery scheduled for this summer as an excuse to oust the VP, and install Fred Thompson in his place.

Quinn names names, speculating that John Warner will take the lead on unseating Cheney, invoking Barry Goldwater's telling Richard Nixon it was time to go, and dismissing the declared Republican presidential candidates' chances out of hand. Contender-in-waiting Thompson, she posits, with the "healing qualities of Gerald Ford and the movie-star appeal of Ronald Reagan," is the answer. (More Dick Cheney stories.)