Okay, okay, okay. Readers think I’m letting Quinn off easy just calling her column “goofy.” So let’s do a little close analysis. The first line:

The big question right now among Republicans is how to remove Vice President Cheney from office.

This, as the social scientists say, is B.S. This is not “the big question” among Republicans. It’s not even a big question among Republicans. Indeed, I would be highly skeptical if it even ranked as a small question among some Republicans. Regardless, she provides no evidence Republicans are clamoring for Cheney’s ouster.

Even before this week’s blockbuster series in The Post, discontent in Republican ranks was rising.

Really? Even before the Torah-length Post series very few Republicans have gotten around to reading, never mind caring about? Last night Fred Barnes even admitted he hadn’t read it.

As the reputed architect of the war in Iraq, Cheney is viewed as toxic, and as the administration’s leading proponent of an attack on Iran, he is seen as dangerous. As long as he remains vice president, according to this thinking, he has the potential to drag down every member of the party — including the presidential nominee — in next year’s elections.

Again, no evidence. My guess is that among the GOP’s base — particularly amidst the outrage over immigration — that Republicans rather Bush step down and Cheney step up.

Removing a sitting vice president is not easy, but this may be the moment. I remember Barry Goldwater sitting in my parents’ living room in 1973, in the last days of Watergate, debating whether to lead a group of senior Republicans to the White House to tell President Nixon he had to go. His hesitation was that he felt loyalty to the president and the party. But in the end he felt a greater loyalty to his country, and he went to the White House.
Today, another group of party elders, led by Sen. John Warner of Virginia, could well do the same. They could act out of concern for our country’s plummeting reputation throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East.

Uh, so replacing Dick Cheney but keeping George W. Bush in office will win over the Arab street for America? Really?

The idea is to install a vice president who could beat the Democratic nominee in 2008.

She then goes on to make the case that the current crop of GOP candidates wouldn’t be acceptable to Bush while Fred Thompson would be.

And there’s the rub. First, Fred Thompson’s popularity stems almost entirely from his distance from Bush. Closing that distance isn’t necessarily smart for Thompson. But I suppose that it might be in his interest to take the job. However, the more relevant question isn’t whether the candidates would be acceptable to Bush, but whether they would be acceptable to the Democratically controlled Congress, since the Veep would have to be approved by both Houses according to the 25th amendment. Oddly, Quinn doesn’t bother to mention that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would be able to veto Bush’s Veep pick or even that the 25th amendment, you know, exists.

Moreover, what on God’s green earth makes Quinn think that Democrats are keen to appoint the one candidate who — at least according to Quinn — can beat the Democrats in ‘08? (whether he analysis is accurate is pretty much irrelevant).

Here are the problems in a nutshell. Quinn is — at best — using a cocktail party conversation with a handful of “reasonable” Georgetown Republicans (Gergen and Kevin Phillips types perhaps) and using it to float an idea that defies almost everything we know about Bush (he prizes loyalty above all else), the Republican Party and the political climate, at home and abroad. It’s bad analysis based on false assertions of fact. Other than that, it’s brilliant!

Update: From a reader:

Jonah, A couple of additional points re: that decidedly loopy piece. The last days of Watergate took place in the summer of 1974, not 1973. And Goldwater only led the GOP delegation to see Nixon after the president had disclosed the smoking-gun tape which proved that he’d lied about using the CIA to pull the FBI off the break-in case — in other words, after he’d admitted committing at least two impeachable crimes. Even then, the delegation — which included Senate GOP leader Hugh Scott — pointedly never told Nixon he “had to go.” It was meant as a frank appraisal of his prospects to avoid conviction by the Senate once the House, as had then become inevitable, impeached him. Goldwater took the lead in telling Nixon he had at most 20 senators who would back him, “and I’m not even sure you can count on me.”