White House Backpedals on Cheney's Waterboarding Comment
The Snow Man was caught yesterday in the unenviable position of defending Dick Cheney's slip of an endorsement for torture on a national radio show. Asked whether the Vice President thought giving terror suspects a "dunk in the water" was a no-brainer, Cheney responded, "Well, it's a no-brainer for me but for a while there I was criticized as being the vice president for torture. We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in." Nothing vague about that...unless your Tony Snow.
Citing the VP's mastery of language and a keen understanding of the political stakes, Snow implies that Cheney is impervious to verbal mistakes, especially on live radio.
"You think Dick Cheney's going to slip up on something like this? No, come on," Snow said.
It's not hard for me to believe that the man who predicted US troops would be greeted with rose pedals in Iraq and who also declared the insurgency as being in "the last throes" might in fact let his true feelings on the use of torture slip peek through from beneath that twisted mug of his. Still, Snow's not sure.
"You know as a matter of common sense that the vice president of the United States is not going to be talking about water boarding. Never would, never does, never will."
Except he just did.
