{"id":5785,"date":"2005-11-09T11:14:39","date_gmt":"2005-11-09T16:14:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5785"},"modified":"2005-11-09T11:14:39","modified_gmt":"2005-11-09T16:14:39","slug":"an-island-unto-himself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/an-island-unto-himself\/","title":{"rendered":"An island unto himself"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post reported this week that when it comes to tolerating torture, Dick Cheney is not the leading voice, he’s the only<\/i> voice. A State Department official described Cheney’s camp as a “shrinking island<\/a>.” Condoleezza Rice isn’t on the island, and as of yesterday, neither is intelligence czar John Negroponte<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, this isolation became almost humorous.<\/p>\n

At Scott McClellan’s press briefing<\/a> yesterday, there were a barrage of questions, primarily from Helen Thomas and NBC’s David Gregory, about Dick Cheney lobbying Congress about exempting the CIA from any effort to curtail detainee abuse.<\/p>\n

On two separate occasions, McClellan flat denied that Cheney has asked lawmakers for an exemption, which is a dubious claim in light of what’s been reported<\/a>. But to reinforce the “shrinking island” notion, McClellan suggested that the Vice President is practically acting independently of the White House.<\/p>\n

Q: So then why is the Vice President continuing to lobby on this issue? If you’re very happy with the laws on the books, what needs change?<\/p>\n

McClellan: Again, you asked me — you want to ask questions of the Vice President’s office, feel free to do that. We’ve made our position very clear. […]<\/p>\n

Q: Does the Vice President’s Office have — I mean, you blanket — covered the White House. The Vice President’s Office is under the Office of the White House. Why can’t you just — why can’t you answer?<\/p>\n

McClellan: I’m not going to get into all the discussions we have with members of Congress. If they want to add additional information, you’re welcome to contact their office, as well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, if you have questions about the White House’s position, you can ask the White House press secretary. If you have questions about the Vice President is up to, call his office.<\/p>\n

What does that make Cheney? Some kind of rogue, pro-torture operator?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post reported this week that when it comes to tolerating torture, Dick Cheney is not the leading voice, he’s the only voice. A State Department official described Cheney’s camp as a “shrinking island.” Condoleezza Rice isn’t on the island, and as of yesterday, neither is intelligence czar John Negroponte. Yesterday, this isolation became […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}