But somehow Cheney got religion: some say it was his wife Lynne, but she had been trying for years. Several people say Bush finally wore him down by example. By this summer, Cheney was ordering fresh fruit, bran muffins and decaf for the congressional breakfasts, which had the other lawmakers grumbling because it was so bland. Senator Bill Frist, who himself may harbor vice-presidential ambitions, says that when he went duck hunting with Cheney in late November, "my heart rate went up a lot more than his as we walked through a foot of water to a duck blind. Fitness comes out at 5 o'clock in the morning in the freezing cold. And he pulls a lot more ducks out of the sky than I do, with a lot less effort."

While both Bush and Cheney are political creatures, they are of utterly different species. Bush loves the foreplay of politics; Cheney can't stand it. Bush learned it at his father's knee; Cheney came to it much later and as a student. Worse, he was a student of political science, a man trained as a staff member, crunching the numbers, writing about highway reforms. As heir to a political dynasty, Bush was always a stand-in for the big guy himself, not an aide but a doppelgänger. And although it was not until 1994 that he began to run seriously, he had been in the motorcade since college. Cheney was born to serve but not to run for the top job, though it took a painful outing before he realized it. During his short-lived presidential bid in 1994, Cheney would ask his handlers if they could make the fund raisers more substantive, which is like trying to make a frat party more philosophical. Even after Bush tapped him to be his running mate, the advance team outlined a parade event in which Cheney would meet and greet some of the voters. "Um," said a Cheney staff member tentatively, "Mr. Cheney does not like to shake hands."

By coming together, each can become even more himself. Bush knows his limitations but does not feel compelled to overcome them, learn what he doesn't know or master what he knows only superficially; Cheney is the consummate student, a voracious reader who absorbs information, masters the details and takes quiet pride in his expertise. "Dick lets George be the external political outside guy, the schmoozer, the talker," says a friend who has known both men long enough to use first names. "And George lets Dick run the machine. George would be bored by process. He understands it. He manipulates it. But he doesn't want to live in it. George gets energy from interacting with people, like his father did. Cheney doesn't. He could spend every day of the rest of his life in his West Wing office and be fulfilled just talking on the phone, moving the process, meeting on policy."

SHARING CHORES
Cheney is the most powerful deputy ever, and he is also very much Bush's subordinate; this is not a contradiction so much as a cause and effect. Bush trusts Cheney because he is loyal, discreet and very clear about who is in charge; that trust in turn is Cheney's trophy, up on the mantel for all to see. They have more than that weekly private lunch that Al Gore insisted on when Bill Clinton recruited him. They are together every day, sometimes for most of the day; Cheney attends any important meeting and then often stays behind with Bush alone. As a minister without portfolio, he has no territory to defend or institution to protect, which means that "the President doesn't have to run his advice through a filter," says an aide to the Vice President. "Cheney's view isn't the State Department view or the Pentagon view; it's Cheney's view."

It also means that Cheney's influence depends entirely on the state of his relationship with Bush, which he has proved very good at tending. Its first pillar is that it includes only one President, now and forever more. This is all but an article of faith in Washington: as budget director Mitch Daniels puts it, Cheney's title is "Senior Adviser Without Future Political Ambition." As Bush happily told some congressional guests early in his first term, "Dick's doing a good job because he's told me he doesn't want to be President." Cheney had his fourth heart attack in November 2000, amidst the Florida recount drama—which lent him further credibility as one who can be appointed but not elected. "For the first time since Truman, you have a Veep who does not dream, does not wonder, does not think every day about being President," says a White House official. "And so Cheney has a much larger role than Bill could have given Al or 41 gave Dan Quayle or Ronald Reagan gave 41."

It might be more accurate to say that Dick Cheney is plenty ambitious, just not the way everyone assumes. Cheney knows that his not wanting power for himself allows Bush to give it to him. Bush put Cheney in charge of his transition because it sent an instant signal about Cheney's clout: "I want Dick to build up some political capital," Bush would say, "so he can go up to Capitol Hill and spend it." Ambitious lawmakers who may run one day themselves did not see Cheney as a rival. The Vice President sat at the Senate's g.o.p. policy lunches, taking notes; when Senator Trent Lott asked for comments, Cheney usually passed. When there was an important bill on the floor, he might say, 'You know, this means a lot to the President. We need to get this done.' And not much more.

This goes to the second piece of gospel about Bush and Cheney's partnership: that its inner workings are utterly secret, the Vice President perfectly discreet. He's Bush's personal CIA, with secure lines into corporate boardrooms, foreign governments, both houses of Congress and sleeper cells in every branch of government. When he went to visit senior British officials—who know something about reticence—they were struck by his demeanor. "There's no charisma," one of them observes. "But that's not what he's there for, which is intelligence, wisdom." In their first meeting, just before Bush took office, the official met with Cheney in Washington. "He just didn't say anything; so I kept talking and talking until I ran out of things to say. It made me feel like a complete idiot," he adds cheerfully—an acknowledgement that sometimes the best way to gather information is by not trying to. "And then at the end, he looked at me quizzically and said, 'How's your brother?'" The brother had been an aide to Margaret Thatcher and was still in Cheney's Rolodex.

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