The "See Through" Administration

Cheney is someone who is simultaneously so slick and so arrogant, one part of him operates with complete deniability while another part operates in open defiance.

That’s why I think this shot — of Ahmad Chalabi leaving the State Department after meeting with Rice on Wednesday — is the perfect visual metaphor.  Rice and Cheney made no effort to conceal the fact that they were meeting this past week with their bad boy, the Deputy Prime Minister of American-controlled Iraq. At the same time, they hide behind diplomatic necessity to cover up the fact they continue to play ball with the man who was their primary co-conspirator in doctoring the pre-war intelligence on Iraq.

If I was Chalabi, and I was still able to work behind the stamp of the U.S. government, I’d be smiling too.

(image: Yuri Gripas/A.P. November 9, 2005. Washington.  Via YahooNews)