Trouble in The Ranks

By Janice Castro

DICK CHENEY HAS EARNED HIGH MARKS AS THE BUSH ADMINIStration's embodiment of square-jawed Western rectitude. But some in the U.S. military no longer see him that way. Though his forthright account of dozens of House-bank overdrafts while a Congressman satisfied most political observers, it did not wash with citizens of the more stringent military culture. Letters in service newspapers have pointed out that the armed forces would never have tolerated such behavior. Wrote an outraged correspondent in the Army Times: "There have been good troops put out of the services with a bad discharge for having committed lesser offenses than Cheney did."