WASHINGTON: George Bush often introduces Dick Cheney as "the best vice- president ever" and then, in a belated nod to the fact that his father once filled the same job, he adds: "Mother might have a second opinion."

The burly taciturn man at the president's side has always been a reassuring presence to American conservatives. Mr Cheney is only five years older than the president, but when they took office in 2001 he seemed like a father figure.

Since then he has become the most powerful vice-president in US history. His staff dwarfs those of his predecessors. Al Gore had one foreign policy adviser; Mr Cheney has more than a dozen.

In the White House he has an influential - some believe decisive - say on the strategic issues of the day, from long-term energy policy to invading Iraq. Until recently the only question mark over his job had been his health. At the age of 63 he has had four heart attacks and for the past three years has had a device in his chest to ensure it pumps normally.

These days, however, his heart is the least of his worries. In the past two months so much ground has fallen from under his feet that some Republicans are quietly musing whether his cardiac record might provide a suitable cover for his eventual withdrawal from the Bush ticket.

The soft-spoken man from Wyoming, who was given the job of picking Mr Bush's running mate in 2000 and ended up picking himself, has become a political liability on the very grounds that he once seemed such an asset.

A commanding role in foreign policy has left his fingerprints all over the hyping of intelligence about Iraqi weapons. He visited the CIA several times before the war, and his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, tried to persuade Colin Powell, the secretary of state, to "sex up" the case against Saddam Hussein by sending him memos bursting with unsubstantiated claims.

Meanwhile Mr Cheney's five years as chief executive of the Halliburton oil services company now look less like admirable real- world experience and more like a scandal waiting to happen.

Scarcely a week passes these days without a new investigation into Halliburton's operations in Iraq, from overcharging $61 million for fuel deliveries to billing the government for thousands of soldiers who did not exist.

The tide is also turning visibly in the press. Amid a flurry of media speculation, this week's edition of the National Journal, the ultimate Washington insider's magazine, put Mr Cheney's picture on its cover, complete with trademark snarl and the title: "Just the Ticket? Does having Dick Cheney as his running mate help or hurt George W Bush in 2004?"

The article weighs the claims of other Republican princes, like the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and Bill Frist, the party leader in the Senate, a photogenic former doctor.

A Time/CNN poll this month found that only 43 per cent of Americans thought Mr Cheney should be on the Republican election ticket. A recent Fox survey found his popularity trailing 10 percentage points behind that of Mr Bush.

According to a former official who follows political strategy in the White House, the president's election guru, Karl Rove, has conducted similar polls of his own, with worse results.

"They found Cheney's unfavourables (the percentage of people who had a negative opinion about him) were very, very high," the former official said. Mr Cheney hardly adds anything to the president's military credentials.

He too opted not to go to Vietnam, having - as he explained later - "other priorities". He also has enemies in the high Republican firmament; many of them, such as Brent Scowcroft and James Baker, were aides of the president's father. But Mr Cheney has solid support where it counts most in the Republican base, the ideological rightwing, who see him as a superstar. He is one of the party's biggest fundraisers.

"He's seen as the most conservative voice in the Bush White House, a reassuring face for free-market conservatives," said Stephen Moore, president of the business-oriented Club for Growth.

Thomas Schaller, a University of Maryland political scientist, pointed out that dropping Mr Cheney would not make dynastic sense for the Bush family, which is widely believed to be grooming the president's younger brother Jeb, who is governor of Florida, to stand in 2008.

"Replacing Cheney with someone like Frist or Giuliani would create an heir apparent. Replacing Cheney is no way to run a proper monarchy," Mr Schaller said.

Everyone interviewed for this article agreed that Mr Cheney is likely to stay in place as President Bush's running mate, barring a dramatic new development. However, that is a big proviso. There are explosive possibilities laid out like land mines along Mr Cheney's path to election day on November 2. -Dawn/The Guardian News Service.