Cheney Targeted? Oh Please!

For starters, no one knew Vice President Cheney was in Afghanistan. He made the secret trip in order to have a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the spring offensive against the Taliban. Yesterday, a suicide bomber struck the main entrance at the Bagram air base where Cheney was waiting to be flown to Kabul. Cheney told reporters, "I heard a loud boom…the Secret Service came in and told me there had been an attack on the main gate." Maj. William Mitchell said it did not appear the explosion was intended as a threat to the vice president. "He wasn't near the site of the explosion," Mitchell said. "He was safely within the base at the time of the explosion." ABC News said, “Cheney was apparently never in any danger at any time on a trip that had been marked by intense secrecy and high security.” Only after the Taliban found out Cheney was in the area did they claim Cheney was the target and that the Taliban was responsible. The bomber never got near Cheney. About two hours after the blast, Cheney flew as scheduled to Kabul for his meeting with Karzai. Karzai’s office said 23 people were killed and 20 wounded by the suicide bomber. Last night during Larry King’s interview with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Pelosi said, “I don’t know the facts, but there are four layers of security between where the break in security occurred and where the vice president was.” She said she was familiar with the air force base in Bagram because she had just been there. Translation: There was no plot, you morons. It has suited the Taliban and the White House to promote the idea that Vice President Cheney was the target of an assassination attempt by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. And the MSM has more than willingly obliged with headlines shouting that the Taliban tried to kill Cheney. But the facts do not bear out that scenario. And it’s a precarious tightrope for the White House to walk. While trying to install Cheney into the same exalted club as Presidents Lincoln, Kennedy and Reagan, the White House also has to make clear that the security surrounding Cheney protected him from harm. For the Bush administration to hype a suicide bomber’s attack on an Afghan air force base as an assassination attempt on Cheney is from the same playbook as Homeland Security hysterically screaming DANGER! DANGER! to deflect attention from White House malfeasance and bungling. And what is the result of this latest episode from the White House fiction department? The lifeless body of Anna Nicole Smith is of more interest to everyone in the world than whether Dick Cheney lives or dies.