The Cheese Stands Alone

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/25/AR2007062501565.html?hpid=topnews

By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, June 26, 2007; Page A02

"We'll make statements only today," President Bush announced to reporters yesterday as he sat with the Estonian president in the Oval Office.

No surprise there. Vice President Cheney's recent declaration that he is not part of the executive branch has prompted hard questions, and nobody in the White House has a good answer for why Cheney -- who hovered near Bush's desk while the president spoke -- had turned himself into a fourth branch of government.

The explanatory task fell to White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, whose skin reddened around her neck and collar as she pleaded ignorance during the daily briefing: "I'm not a legal scholar. . . . I'm not opining on his argument that his office is making. . . . I don't know why he made the arguments that he did."

"It's a little surreal," remarked Keith Koffler of Congress Daily.

"You're telling me," Perino agreed.

Oh, Dana, you're never gonna cut it with that attitude! Apparently, God knows how, the poor kid got the impression that her job was to explain administration policy :rofl:

Your job, Ms Perino, is to say something that will give the impression of closing down lines of inquiry, not to treat statements made by your bosses as things to be actually reconciled with objective reality.

I mean, hell, she didn't even try to blame the terrorists for this. I have the feeling someone in the VP's office is gonna be raking Dana Perino over the coals for this unauthorized recognition of objective truth. Hope Condi's got her back.

Milbank pisses me off more often than not, but be nails this one:

<snip>

ABC's Martha Raddatz led off. "Does the president believe is part of the executive branch?"

Perino drew a deep breath and flipped through her notes. "I think that that is an interesting constitutional question," she answered.