Thursday, February 16, 2006

Re: [911InsideJobbers] Is this a setup to get rid of Cheney?

> --- Ursprüngliche Nachricht ---
> Von: "malaprop" <malaprop2@msn.com>
> An: <911InsideJobbers@yahoogroups.com>
> Betreff: [911InsideJobbers] Is this a setup to get rid of Cheney?
> Datum: Wed, 15 Feb 2006 10:30:52 -0800

Or did Cheney really shot? :)

> Was this some sort of set up to force out Cheney?
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> February 15, 2006
> Political Memo
> Handling of Mishap Creates Strain in the White House
> By DAVID E. SANGER
> WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 - When the White House press secretary, Scott
> McClellan, came to the press room just before 10 a.m. Tuesday and
suggested he was
> wearing an orange tie to avoid a stray shot from Vice President Dick
> Cheney, it seemed to signal an effort to defuse the accidental-shooting
story
> with a laugh.
>
> But by midday, it was clear that the staffs of the president and the vice
> president had failed to communicate. Just after arriving at work around
> 7:45 a.m., Mr. Cheney learned that the man he had shot, Harry M.
Whittington,
> was about to undergo a medical procedure on his heart because his injuries
> were more serious than earlier believed, Mr. Cheney's spokeswoman said.
>
> No one in Mr. Cheney's office passed the word to Mr. McClellan, senior
> officials at the White House said, adding that the press secretary would
never
> have joked about the shooting accident if he had known about the turn of
> events involving Mr. Whittington.
>
> It was the latest example of the degree to which Mr. Cheney's habit of
> living in his own world in the Bush White House - surrounded by his own
staff,
> relying on his own instincts, saying as little as possible - had backfired
> since the accident in Texas on Saturday. Mr. Cheney's staff members have
> kept their comments to chronological details and to repeating the vice
> president's written statements.
>
> The tension between President Bush's staff and Mr. Cheney's has been
> palpable, with White House officials whispering to reporters about how
they
> tried to handle the news of the shooting differently. Mr. McClellan, while
> being careful not to cross Mr. Cheney or his aides directly, has made a
point
> of reminding reporters of how he dealt with Mr. Bush's bicycle accident
last
> summer, when the president collided with a Scottish policeman at the G-8
> summit.
>
> "I immediately briefed the press on how the accident had happened, and the
> condition of the police officer," who was taken to the hospital with minor
> injuries, Mr. McClellan said.
>
> His message was clear: There was a procedure for conveying this kind of
> news, and it was not followed in this case.
>
> The past three days have underscored, in public, what has always been
> clear in the Bush White House: Mr. Cheney plays by rules of his own
making. It
> is the freedom that only a political figure who knows he is in his last
job
> - he often says he will never run again - can get away with.
>
> "What he did was not an irrational thing," said Mary Matalin, Mr. Cheney's
> former communications adviser, who spoke to him Sunday morning. "This was
> a very close friend this happened to. Everyone was shaken up about it.
When
> I spoke to him, it was all about Harry, worrying about him," not whether
> he should get a statement out, or let his South Texas host tell a local
> newspaper.
>
> To others, though, it is a telling example of the cocoon Mr. Cheney has
> created within the White House.
>
> Even at the most secure meetings in the White House situation room, Mr.
> Cheney tends to ask questions but leave the participants guessing about
his
> own views - largely, his colleagues say they suspect, for fear of leaks.
His
> movements, once hidden for security reasons, are now often cloaked out of
> habit. Several senior members of the administration said they were not
told
> of the shooting accident until late Sunday.
>
> Several White House officials said no one among the White House staff,
> including the chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., felt empowered to
dictate
> how news of the accident would be handled.
>
> Presumably Mr. Bush could have declared how the news would be
> disseminated, something he does often on policy matters. Until this week,
the periodic
> disconnect between Mr. Cheney's office and the rest of the White House has
> been the source of grumbling, but rarely open tension. The most notable
> exception came in August 2002, when Mr. Cheney, delivering a speech about
> Iraq, spoke so disparagingly about the utility of past United Nations
weapons
> inspections that he left the impression that the administration would
never
> again use inspections in an effort to assess the threat of Saddam Hussein.
>
> In fact, Mr. Bush had decided to try to send inspectors back in, at least
> for a while, and it was left to Condoleezza Rice, then the national
> security adviser, to call Mr. Cheney and get him to strike that wording
from a
> speech he was giving a few days later.
>
> In the past five years, Mr. Cheney has grown accustomed to having a power
> center of his own, with his own miniature version of a national security
> council staff. It conducts policy debates that often happen parallel those
> among Mr. Bush's staff.
>
> But the team Mr. Cheney relies on has changed in recent months. The
> departure of I. Lewis Libby Jr., who was indicted late last year on
charges
> stemming from the investigation into the leak of a C.I.A. officer's name,
left
> Mr. Cheney without one of his chief confidantes. His most recent
> communications chief, Steve Schmidt, also departed, to run the re-election
campaign of
> Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California.
>
> It was unclear if their presence would have made a difference last
> weekend, when the accident was not disclosed publicly for more than 18
hours. Some
> former White House officials put the blame for that squarely on Mr.
> Cheney.
>
> Marlin Fitzwater, who was press secretary to the first President Bush
> (when Mr. Cheney served as defense secretary), said he was "appalled" at
how
> the vice president handled the news of a serious accident.
>
> "The responsibility for handling this, of course, was Cheney's," Mr.
> Fitzwater was quoted as saying in the online edition of Editor and
Publisher.
> "What he should have done was call his press secretary and tell her what
> happened, and she then would have gotten a hold of the doctor and asked
him
> what happened."
>
> A full account could have been put out "in about two hours on Saturday,"
> he said.
>
> Ari Fleischer, Mr. McClellan's predecessor, said Tuesday that he suspected
> the reason Mr. Cheney failed to say anything publicly was because he
> viewed the hunting trip and the accident as part of his private life, not
his
> public one.
>
> "If this had been a question of fundamental policy," Mr. Fleischer said,
> "the president's staff and the veep's staff would have gotten together."
>
>
>
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