Dick Cheney: 'Smooth, graceful' handoff

by Mark Silva

"The good news is, it's going to be a short speech,'' Vice President Dick Cheney, suffering from laryngitis, told cadets of the Virginia Military Institute today.

Perhaps a record-setting short speech: Five minutes.

Cheney, who led the nationwide search for Dick Cheney when President Bush was looking for a running mate during his first campaign for the White House, promised today that the Bush-Cheney White House will hand off the place with a smooth transition: "As President Bush and I finish our terms of office, we will ensure smooth and graceful transition of power to President-Elect Obama and Vice President-Elect Biden, as they take up the duty of protecting America.''

That job of protecting America came home in the most stunning way possible for the Bush administration, less than eight months in office.

"Seven years ago a war began with a heartless attack on innocent Americans, perpetrated by men who reject and despise every principle on which civilized life depends,'' Cheney told the cadets. "They reject every standard of moral conduct. They live not by a code, but by a cult of murder, suicide and death. They compose not a den of criminals, but a movement with global ambitions and a yearning to seize and use the deadliest technologies against us. They are a strategic threat to the United States. They continue to test us on many fronts, yet this nation remains resolute.

"In the struggle at hand, the stakes remain high, but I am confident of the outcome,'' Cheney said. "Those who hate America are no match for those who love America.''

The vice president, his spokeswoman said en route to the ceremony, was "battling laryngitis.'' Cheney flew to Roanoke and then traveled by motorcade to Lexington, Va., where a woman stood by her van clapping and waving an American flag. At the campus entrance, a man held up a white sign saying "Cheney and USA deserve a fair trial."

In this "MIlitary Appreciaton Day" appearance, the 1,350-member cadet corps marched onto the field as the VMI regimental band and a bagpipe unit played. The cadets wore grey coats, white pants, and black hats with tall black tassels. The bagpipe players wore red tartan kilts. At 10:48 am, the vice president walked to the podium as the VMI regimental band played ruffles and flourishes and a 19 gun salute boomed from 105 millimeter howitzers. The cadet corps was arrayed in five companies in front of the vice president.

Cheney apologized for his laryngitis at the start of the speech. As short as it was, a cadet fainted and was helped from the field by several other cadets. VMI officials say the cadet is recovering and did not require hospitalization.

After today's ceremony, Cheney was attending to another medical issue of his own - upon return to Andrews Air Force Base, he was stopping in at the Malcolm Grove Medical Center for X-rays of his knees for evaluation of what his office called "long standing knee arthritis.''

With thanks to Dave Cook of the Christian Science Monitor for meticulous pool reporting of the vice president's trip to VMI.