…Cheney told USA Today he was not worried about his image as the administration's Machiavelli, skilled in the quiet arts of persuading his "Prince" to pursue questionable policies, adding, surprisingly un-self-consciously, "Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? It's a nice way to operate, actually."

But whether Cheney likes it or not, he is increasingly seen that way, by Democrats, by Republican internationalists such as Baker and Scowcroft, and, perhaps most significantly for purposes of Bush's re-election prospects, by a growing number of traditionally Republican right-wingers and libertarians worried about the impact of the exploding costs of the "war on terror" on the country's fiscal health, individual liberties and armed forces.

They also blame Cheney for being the administration's key backer and enabler of the neo-conservative vision of a never-ending war against radical Islam, which they believe will only accelerate current trends.

"So Dick Cheney turns out to be a true radical - not a moderate Republican," noted Georgie Anne Geyer, a nationally syndicated columnist, who compared the vice president to Cardinal Richelieu of 17th-century France in a cover article for this week's edition of American Conservative magazine.

"While there is little mystery about what he has actually done, there remains the mystery of how a man from Wyoming should be the epicenter of a scheme so strange, so Machiavellian, so profoundly disaggregated from the American context," she wrote. "But no one should expect Dick Cheney and his group [of neo-conservatives] to change. They will not."

In a case of particularly bad timing, Cheney's image as a manipulative schemer was furthered again this week, just as he was trying to reassure Europeans about his moderation and commitment to multilateralism.

In a new book on Tony Blair, author and Financial Times correspondent Philip Stephens depicts Cheney as the surprise guest at key meetings between Bush and the British prime minister. He quotes one Blair aide complaining that Cheney "waged a guerrilla war" against London's efforts to seek United Nations approval before the war.

The book concludes that Cheney constantly "sought to undermine the prime minister privately", and quotes him telling another senior official more than six months before the war, "Once we have victory in Baghdad, all the critics will look like fools."

But despite Saddam's capture, that "victory" still looks rather tenuous, and with recent polls showing Cheney's favorability rating at less than one-half of Bush's - a mere 20 percent and falling - so might the vice president's claim to the No 2 spot on the Republican ticket.