Out of the Loop

Moe Blues over at Bad Attitudes has the best take on Cheney's bizarre appearance on Big Pharma's show:

So Dick Cheney is making the rounds claiming that Clarke was "out of the loop" in the administration's counter-terror efforts. Therefore, Clarke doesn't know what he's talking about and anything he says should be instantly discounted.

It's amazing that Cheney does not seem to realize what he is actually saying: That the Bush administration's top expert on terrorism was not consulted about their counter-terrorism efforts. This presents several unpalatable choices:

1. Cheney is lying for political gain. If the public picks up on this, the backlash could be out of all proportion to the damage Cheney is trying to control.

2. The administration deliberately ignored its in-house expert, with September 11 being the result. This eliminates one more scapegoat, since the White House cannot simultaneously blame Clarke for failing to stop 9/11 while claiming he was "out of the loop" on counter-terrorism.

3. Assuming Cheney speaks the truth, it actually bolsters Clarke's claim to Cassandra-hood. Cut out of the loop, his warnings went nowhere and were ignored. That, too, is pretty damning of the administration.