Noonan on Cheney

Peggy Noonan, on a possible Cheney retirement:

Mr. Bush may feel in time that he has reason to want to put in a new vice president in order to pick a successor who'll presumably have an edge in the primaries--he's the sitting vice president, and Republicans still respect primogeniture. They will tend to make the common-sense assumption that a guy who's been vice president for, say, a year and a half, is a guy who already knows the top job.

Love ya, Peg, but where ya been? I wrote this a year and a half ago:

...there’s an awful lot that can happen over the next four years. One of the most interesting theories has Vice President Cheney resigning before his current term is up, and replacing him with the heir apparent.

From a political standpoint, this is a good idea. Assuming Cheney really doesn’t want to try for the Presidency himself, holding onto the Veep slot until 2008 takes a big advantage away from the Republicans – the advantage of incumbency. A Vice President running for The Promotion is usually the 800-pound gorilla in any given election. Cheney knows this.

So, Cheney resigns due to health concerns.(his heart), and is replaced by... the most common answer is Condoleeza Rice, thereby setting up a potential Condi vs. Hillary cage match in ’08.

Yeah, okay, so my conclusion seems really far-fetched today (and Condi vs. Hillary wasn't my conclusion - no, it was much more far-fetched than that), but the fact remains - Peggy Noonan is obviously reading my blog.

Um...does anybody know what primogeniture means?

UPDATE - KJL weighs in at The Corner:

Will he move on? I have no idea. But I will bet any of my colleagues dinner at the Palm (which I swear I've never actually eaten at) that the president's first choice would be Condi Rice.