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Bush, Cheney Ticket to Reunite in Capitol

Bush and Cheney will hang out again Thursday in the Capitol. (CQ Roll Call File Photo)
Bush and Cheney will hang out again Thursday in the Capitol. (CQ Roll Call File Photo)

The 2000 Republican presidential ticket will reunite Thursday for a ceremony dedicating the marble bust of former Vice President Dick Cheney in the Senate’s vice presidential collection.  

Former President George W. Bush will make remarks, and he will be joined by several congressional leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis.; Senate Rules and Administration Chairman Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; and, of course, Cheney himself. William Behrends sculpted the bust, his second in the collection. (He did the bust for Spiro Agnew as well.)  

Behrends will also sculpt the bust of Al Gore, President Bill Clinton’s vice president. It’s not unprecedented to go out of order. Agnew’s bust wasn’t unveiled until 1995.  

Cheney apparently settled on an artist and subsequent sitting before Gore, although Gore’s bust is now in the process. A Gore spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.  

The collection, scattered throughout the second and third floors of the Senate, honors former vice presidents for their constitutional role as presidents of the Senate.  

In 1885, the Senate commissioned the first bust, of Henry Wilson, who served under Ulysses S. Grant, and placed it adjacent to the Senate chamber in the Vice President’s Room. Ten years earlier, Wilson had died in that room following a stroke.

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