Amid changes, balance of power remains same

WASHINGTON -- It's a time-honored ritual of presidencies under siege: Dump the White House chief of staff.

Dwight Eisenhower, under pressure from Congress, cut loose his autocratic chief, Sherman Adams. Richard Nixon staved off the Watergate dogs for a little while by jettisoning the much-loathed H.R. Haldeman. When Ronald Reagan became enmeshed in the Iran-Contra scandal, he fired his chief, Donald Regan, and tapped the former Senate majority leader, Howard Baker, to bring in a largely new staff. John Sununu got the ax amid disarray in George H.W. Bush's White House.

While the benefits of changing the chief were often political -- offering a scapegoat to quiet the critics -- each firing brought about a substantive change as well, a clearing of the air in a suffocating administration. The departure of the chief of staff usually led to a changing of the staff, as well.

So when polls showed approval ratings for the current President Bush plunging earlier this year, many of his Republican allies pushed for a staff shake-up. But even if Bush had been inclined to follow their advice, this particular method of clearing the air in the Oval Office was never open to him.

That's because the sweeping clout enjoyed by Regan, Sununu, and their ilk is wielded in this administration by Vice President Dick Cheney, the only official in the White House who can't be fired.

Last week, Bush accepted the resignation of Andrew Card, who has held the title of chief of staff for all of Bush's tenure. But the Massachusetts-born Card was more of a facilitator than a leader. No one thought he had much clout in the policy arena.

As Ryan Lizza wrote in The New Republic, ''The 58-year-old Card will be remembered as the Republican chief of staff who transformed the position from that of imperious prime minister . . . to lowly manservant."

Lizza went on to quote an anecdote in which Bush summoned Card to an interview with former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill just to ask his chief of staff to get him some cheeseburgers. Card quickly complied. (The anecdote is in Ron Suskind's book on O'Neill, ''The Price of Loyalty.")

Even if Card had been less willing to be sent out for grub, he would never have been able to rule the White House like most of his predecessors, because there was already a prime minister in the Bush administration: Cheney.

Historically, the vice president has functioned like the second son in a royal family. He generally has maintained a high sense of status, indulged in a few helpful projects, and, in most instances, stayed ready to assume power in the event of the president's death or resignation. In most administrations, the vice president has been kept on a short leash. (President Lyndon Johnson had a characteristically crude term for describing his dominance over his veep, Hubert Humphrey.)

So when Cheney, who had already been White House chief of staff under President Ford, emerged as a dominant player in the Bush administration, many people expressed relief that someone had found a way to invigorate one of the most famously underpowered positions in American politics.

Cheney's power went beyond even the strongest chiefs of staff, as he appointed former aides and allies to key positions, and sought to ride herd over the State, Defense, and Justice departments. Cheney's office coordinated the case for war with Iraq, and it was Cheney who recently delivered the ultimatum that the United States would never allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. As he would with a chief of staff, Bush acceded to Cheney's moves, willingly placing the vice president at the top of the White House flow chart.

But while it may be logical that the second-most clout in the country should go to the elected vice president rather than a Cabinet secretary or staff mountebank, the disadvantages of such a power structure are becoming apparent. For while statements and policies crafted by staff members or Cabinet secretaries can be disavowed and the official sent packing, the vice president can't be dismissed.

Even if Bush wanted to marginalize Cheney, and there's no evidence that he does, he would have to remove all the Cheney loyalists from the defense secretary on down and still wake up to Cheney sitting in the West Wing every morning. Only Congress can remove a vice president, and only then for ''high crimes and misdemeanors."

Cheney seems happy to swim along with an approval rating lower than Bush. He isn't running for office. He's running the country.

Peter S. Canellos is the Globe's Washington bureau chief. National Perspective is his weekly analysis of events in the capital and beyond.