By PETER BAKER
c.2010 New York Times News Service
President George W. Bush considered dropping Vice President Dick Cheney from his 2004 re-election ticket to dispel the myths about Cheney’s power in the White House and “demonstrate that I was in charge,” the former president says in a new memoir.
The idea came from Cheney, who offered to drop out of the race as the two men ate lunch one day in mid-2003.
“I did consider the offer,” Bush writes, and spent several weeks exploring the possibility of replacing Cheney with Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, then the majority leader, before opting against the switch.