This Guardian (UK) story is very informative, quite accurate, and a very good review of the notorious career of Cheney as v.p. However, to suggest naively, as does the headline and introductory paragraphs, that there has ever been really any doubt that Cheney is the de facto president of the USA is a bit amusing to any American with eyes open. Cheney not only selected himself as v.p. He and his neoconservative cohorts CHOSE the alcohol soaked and ceremonial governor of Texas, G.W. Bush, to run for the presidency, thanks only to his name. While Cheney would like to think of himself as the "evil genius" in the White House, the record quite clearly and painfully shows that he is the evil INCOMPETENT. Power hungry, yes, but genius ? Not considering the horrors his arrogant stupidity has wrought in Iraq, on the energy situation, on the environment, on the USA national debt, in New Orleans, in the MidEast, on America's trustworthiness and influence all over the world, etc., etc., etc. - - the list of total failures staggers the imagination. And all along his poster boy, Goerge W., and that other overgrown College Republican sophomore, Karl Rove, have overplayed their hands so badly that no one other than that same cadre of neocon punks that put them in the White House in the first place any longer listens to them. So much for power - - a lot of damage done, but a temporary commodity at best. In the meantime, Cheney's Republican Party will soon, as a result of his actions, will after 2008 spend a political eternity as the future puny minority. So it seems the British press are finally catching up with what most Americans have known all along.