now, tastes more like real life

Article about Colin Powell in the New York Review of Books

The recurring thump of the Vice President's sharp elbows becomes a leitmotif. On one occasion, when Powell called over to Bush's staff to say he was hastening to the White House to write some diplomatic language into a letter on the Kyoto treaty that was about to be dispatched to Capitol Hill, Cheney hand-carried the letter himself up to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue before the secretary could go to work on it. On another, Cheney dictated an ultimatum to Turkey to a desk officer at State, ordering him to transmit it without showing it to his boss. Another time he and Bush drafted new instructions to the ambassador at the North Korea talks without bothering to tell their top diplomat that they'd substituted their directive for his. Powell had to assume these slights were intended to put him in his place.