{"id":6611,"date":"2006-02-14T09:45:47","date_gmt":"2006-02-14T14:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6611"},"modified":"2006-02-14T09:45:47","modified_gmt":"2006-02-14T14:45:47","slug":"mcclellan-plays-pin-the-tail-on-the-cheney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/mcclellan-plays-pin-the-tail-on-the-cheney\/","title":{"rendered":"McClellan plays ‘pin the tail on the Cheney’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The most amazing thing about yesterday’s White House press briefing<\/a> was not the fact that reporters were in near revolt; it was the fact that Scott McClellan basically hung Dick Cheney out to dry. McClellan didn’t literally say, “Hey Dick, you’re on your own” — but he came close.<\/p>\n

Slate’s John Dickerson noted<\/a> that McClellan “tried an unusual strategy for such a unified administration: to separate the president from the vice president.” That’s absolutely right. Consider this response<\/a> early on in the briefing:<\/p>\n

“As you know, the way we have typically approached things, that I typically approach things — I think of a similar incident when the President was in Gleneagles, Scotland, and he had a biking accident with a police officer there, and I quickly tried to give that information to the press through the pool reporter and provide that information to you all.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is about as direct a criticism of the VP’s office as McClellan will ever get. It was subtle, but the White House press secretary was essentially saying, “Some<\/i> of us know how to publicly disclose important information. I’m not pointing any fingers — wink, wink — but when it’s up to my<\/i> office, we share information quickly.”<\/p>\n

For that matter, consider these responses to Cheney-shot-a-guy questions.
\n
\n* “You ought to talk to the Vice President’s Office and check that fact.”<\/p>\n

* “Well, people with the Vice President’s Office. I think you can probably — I would check with his office on more specifics.”<\/p>\n

* “[I]f there is additional information you want, you can direct those questions to the Vice President’s Office.”<\/p>\n

* “I think you can ask questions to his — direct questions to his office.”<\/p>\n

* “Well, I think the Vice President’s team was with him. You ought to check that with the Vice President’s Office.”<\/p>\n

* “Check with his office; I don’t know.”<\/p>\n

* “I don’t know all the specific facts. Mrs. Armstrong and\/or the Vice President’s Office may be able to provide you additional information.”<\/p>\n

Here was the kicker:<\/p>\n

Q: And it also sounds as though your suggestions about how to handle this were disregarded by the Vice President’s Office.<\/p>\n

McClellan: Again, I’ll keep those conversations private.<\/p>\n

Q: Well, you might as well say that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

McClellan didn’t correct him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The most amazing thing about yesterday’s White House press briefing was not the fact that reporters were in near revolt; it was the fact that Scott McClellan basically hung Dick Cheney out to dry. McClellan didn’t literally say, “Hey Dick, you’re on your own” — but he came close. Slate’s John Dickerson noted that McClellan […]<\/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-6611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6611","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=6611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}