> I had thought that Vader would be the
Emperor's right-hand man for everything,
politics, military and whatnot, as being a
repressive regime, the politics and military go
hand-in-hand.

Well obviously Vader could have told Tarkin
what to do, despite his lack of military rank.
We're just coming up with possible reasons
why he didn't.

You also could consider the fact that at that
"point in time," the Empire hadn't really
suffered any real defeats at the hands of the
rebels yet. Tarkin's overconfidence was made
painfully obvious in the movie, and led to his
downfall. Perhaps Vader shared some of that
overconfidence himself, albeit to a lesser
degree. After all, he didn't know about Luke yet
at that point. The destruction of the first death
star was a wake-up call for the empire, that's
for sure. We certainly saw both Vader and
Palpatine taking a heavier hand with their
military officers in Episodes V and VI.

Gri"feels a bit silly discussing this as if it's true
history and not make-believe"shny