The indictment of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is a body blow to the Bush White House in many ways — none more so, perhaps, in that it turns a glaring spotlight on the real mystery man in the president’s inner circle of cronies and confidants: Vice President Dick Cheney.

Libby is (was) Cheney’s chief of staff, the right-hand man to the right-hand man. His job was to make Cheney’s wishes into commands — no easy task for most vice presidents and their top aides, although in this administration he carried out a daily staple of decisions and directives. The rather undynamic duo have had a peerless grip on the levers of presidential power.

Everyone has been asking what President Bush would do without Karl Rove, whose fate now awaits another day of reckoning. But the real question is what will Bush do without Cheney? For whatever the outcome of the CIA leak scandal, the Libby indictment has blown the vice president’s cover wide open.

It makes sense that Cheney’s office was so central to the effort to discredit Joseph Wilson and his findings that the White House was wrong to claim that Saddam Hussein sought materials for weapons of mass destruction in Africa. Cheney was often in charge of backfill when an administration argument was found to be lacking.

From his beginnings with the Bush team, Cheney played the role of backroom Godfather. For a long time after Sept. 11, he operated from, literally, an “undisclosed location” — perhaps in the bowels of the White House, perhaps elsewhere. In those early days, he was the principal link in Bush’s high command to the senior George Bush regime (having been Defense secretary back then), once a comfort to those close to the president’s father as well as to the nation at large.

But eventually some of those early compatriots began to wonder about Cheney’s power grab. Brent Scowcroft, the 41st president’s national security adviser, is quoted in the current issue of The New Yorker that he no longer recognizes the Cheney he once knew.

Indeed, Cheney’s tenure as vice president took him well beyond the more subservient role he played for presidents as far back as Richard Nixon. To some who knew him then, he has now evolved to a place that — at least in his own mind — puts him on a par with the president himself, if not beyond. But the Washington graveyard is littered with those who considered themselves indispensable.

It was no accident in 2000 when Bush picked for his running mate the man he had put in charge of looking for one. Another contender for the spot instantly knew what was going on when Cheney, pretending to be the vetter, called to discuss the job’s requirements. After Cheney rattled off a list of qualifications, this hopeful told him, “Dick, that’s you.”

Indeed, Cheney managed to eliminate rivals to be Bush’s No. 2 by requiring a lengthy set of credentials that only a very few like him could offer. This bit of theater and manipulation would be Cheney’s hallmark as he overcame the mundane chores of the vice presidency to become something closer to White House Vicar.

Bush was the salesman, but Cheney was the chief operating officer. Rarely did we hear of the president overruling the vice president in a dispute. One such occasion was Bush’s belated decision — at the urging of his first secretary of State, Colin L. Powell — to seek approval from the United Nations before invading Iraq. Cheney had stood firmly against doing so.

But on nearly every other major White House decision, Cheney was on top. He combined a fierce conservative ideology with a knack for bypassing bureaucracy to keep this White House in the driver’s seat, even when Bush might waver. His railroading of CIA intelligence on Iraq led to the Bush presidency’s most scandalous crisis.

Cheney quietly dominated this presidency in so many ways that we can hardly imagine its trajectory without his dominating influence. He kept congressional Republicans in line, and toed the line whenever Bush’s critics got the upper hand. From the Iraq invasion to energy policy and other arenas we probably will not even know about for years, Cheney was the stern and self-assured adult, allowing Bush to play for the crowd.

Whenever conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill would show signs of bolting from the White House agenda, it was Cheney who would sit in their private weekly meetings and let them rant until they ran out of steam. Almost like a low-key but firm school principal, he would occasionally interrupt those sessions with a sardonic remark that subdued the unruly.

And who can forget how Cheney manhandled an unruly Democrat, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, coarsely cursing him just off the Senate floor in a rare show of anger that spoke volumes about his true nature? Such a moment makes it easy to imagine Cheney directing his aides to take out Wilson, even if that meant outing his wife’s covert status at the CIA.

Contributing Editor Craig Crawford is a news analyst for MSNBC, CNBC and “The Early Show” on CBS. He can be reached at ccrawford@cq.com.