Sharp-eyed TPM Reader DM …
With all the talk about Cheney in Pakistan and the good cop/bad cop aspect of this performance, I think there’s something critical and overlooked underlying this New York Times lead:
“Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced trip to Pakistan on Monday to deliver what officials in Washington described as an unusually tough message Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, warning him that the newly Democratic Congress could cut aid to his country unless his forces become far more aggressive in hunting down operatives with Al Qaeda.”
This is Dick Cheney. The hardest of hardcore Republican terror scaremongers. Of all those who have tarred Democrats as weak on terror, nobody’s done it like Dick. Cheney wasn’t playing the good cop or bad cop role before. He simply wasn’t walking the beat. This is a tacit acknowledgement that the Democratic Congress is more serious about fighting Al Qaeda than the White House. He’s essentially saying, “look, we’ve let you slide on this, because, well, you know us…” Other things were more important.
Dick Cheney has acknowledged that the Democratic Congress is more intent than the White House on hunting down Al Qaeda operatives.
-DM
Same thing jumped out at me last night.
Late Update: Also see Paul Kiel’s analysis of Dick Cheney’s new secret weapons (the Democratic Congress) here.
