Cheney and the Agnew strategy

I have a vague memory that Nixon once said that Agnew was his primary defense against impeachment. When Ford replaced Agnew Nixon was a goner.

Molly Ivins isn't interested in impeaching Bush. For one thing:

WorkingForChange-Wreckage of the Bush administration

...I believe Dick Cheney is seriously off the rails, apparently deeply paranoid -- let's not put him in charge....

Saying Cheney is insane is the kind of thing we bloggers do. Molly Ivins is a veteran journalist; about as veteran as one can be these days. I doubt she tossed that line off without some thought, and some background evidence.

Cheney is too old to develop paranoid schizophrenia. He has, however, had several episodes of cardiac bypass, and he's not a young man. It's conceivable that he could have developed an organic brain syndrome with paranoid features -- partly due to his age, partly due to preexisting temperament, and partly due to the cumulative neurotrauma of several stints on bypass.

So it's an interesting question. Is Cheney truly fundamentally impaired, perhaps more severely than Reagan was by his early Alzheimer's Disease? Is anyone else saying this?

Hmmm. I wonder there's any legal maneuver one could use to expose a disabling condition in the VP ...