George Bush

Since leaving the White House and moving to Dallas, the former president has almost completely stepped out of public life. He has decided that, unlike Cheney, it is more dignified to maintain his silence about Barack Obama's presidency. On the day that Obama and Cheney were trading speeches, he was speaking to high school children in New Mexico, telling them he found it a strange experience walking his dog Barney in the new neighbourhood, with a plastic bag for picking up its droppings.



Condoleezza Rice

Survived the length of the Bush administration, first as national security adviser and then as secretary of state. She is blamed by right-wingers for shifting Bush away from neo-conservatism to a more pragmatic view of the world in his second term. Rice came from the academic world and returned there last March, to teach political science at Stanford.

Paul Wolfowitz

The former deputy defence secretary was one of the leading neo-conservatives, advocating the invasion of Iraq. After losing his job, he became head of the World Bank, where his tenure proved divisive and he was eventually forced out in a scandal over a job for his girlfriend. He is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Donald Rumsfeld

Although not ideologically a neo-conservative, the former defence secretary often found himself in alliance with them, in particular over the Iraq invasion. He attended the White House correspondents' dinner this month, but otherwise is not seen much around Washington since being sacked by Bush. Rumsfeld has talked about writing his memoirs but so far does not appear to have been offered a contract. He spent a year at Stanford University in California studying events post September 11.

Colin Powell

Bush's secretary of state in his first term, which included the invasion of Iraq. His reputation has not recovered from his performance at the United Nations when he claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Powell supported Barack Obama rather than John McCain during the election. The conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh has questioned his Republican credentials, as did Cheney, who earlier this month said pointedly: "I didn't know he was still a Republican."