Cheney’s trip around the world this week has produced some of the more memorable dispatches to press.release@whitehouse.gov in this administration. First, the “unreportable” actions of the leg out. Then the long search for a bunk (“After we nearly had a collision on the tarmac with a fuel tanker, our bus wandered around the base in search of someone who knew where the barracks were.”), then, you know, the deadly bombing. In the history books, it will also be remembered for this, one of the lamest excuses for anonymity since Libby asked to be identified as a “former Hill staffer.” From an “INTERVIEW OF A SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL, BY THE TRAVELING PRESS”:
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Let me just make one editorial comment here. I’ve seen some press reporting says, “Cheney went in to beat up on them, threaten them.” That’s not the way I work. I don’t know who writes that, or maybe somebody gets it from some source who doesn’t know what I’m doing, or isn’t involved in it. But the idea that I’d go in and threaten someone is an invalid misreading of the way I do business.
Uh, yeah, “Cheney” works that way but, er, “I” don’t…
That’s in the second paragraph. Another, ahem, hint:
Q You’ve spoken also, though, about some of the things that Speaker Pelosi and Representative Murtha have said how that does play to the hands of —
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I was asked by one of your colleagues.
[snip]
And my point was that if we follow what I believe Speaker Pelosi really wants to do in terms of withdraw, that that would validate the al Qaeda strategy. I was very careful in those words I selected. I didn’t say “give aid and comfort to terrorists.” I didn’t say “unpatriotic.” I said it would validate the al Qaeda strategy.
Let’s see, who’s said something like that about Pelosi lately… “validate the al Qaeda straegy”… Damn, it’s on the tip of my blood-of-the-living-drenched tongue…
I thought these guys were the leak experts. This is as blatant as birdshot in the face.
UPDATE: In the wake of the Libby trial’s examples of media accommodation, the willingness of the press corps to go along with this not-even-trying-level of deception is especially embarrassing. But I haven’t seen any reporting on the interview yet. Maybe someone will call the OVP’s bluff.
UPDATE 2: AP catches clue train, rides it all the way to Coy-ville:
The rules were simple. The official who briefed reporters on Vice President
Dick Cheney’s plane could be identified only as a senior administration official. But there were plenty of clues who was talking as Cheney wrapped up a trip with surprise stops in Pakistan and Afghanistan.“The reason the president wanted me to come, obviously, is because of the continuing threat that exists in this part of the world on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border,” the high-ranking person who spoke on condition of anonymity said Tuesday.
The White House distributed a text of the senior administration official’s comments on Air Force Two as Cheney flew from Afghanistan to Oman before beginning his flight back to Washington. The transcript did not spell out why the official on Cheney’s plane would not be quoted by name.