What Is Mainstream?

"The unusual outburst, later toned down, revealed the depth of tensions between General Musharraf and Washington over what administration officials say have been inadequate efforts by Pakistan in combating Al Qaeda and the Taliban. . . .

"The White House would say little on Monday about the message Mr. Cheney was sent to deliver, though it did not deny reports that it included a tough warning that American aid to Pakistan could be in jeopardy. . . .

"The sensitivities of Mr. Cheney's trip were particularly evident as the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, parried detailed questions about the vice president's message to Pakistan, a country that Mr. Bush has hailed as a close American ally.

"Referring to Mr. Cheney, Mr. Snow said that 'the precise nature of his comments and the tenor of comments to the president would be the sort of things that would be confidential,' He reaffirmed Mr. Bush's confidence that General Musharraf was committed to fighting terrorism."

Liberal bloggers, including Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, were reveling yesterday in their interpretation of Cheney's mission to Pakistan: "Democrats are forcing the Bush Administration to do its job on terrorism."

Flip Flop?

Could this be as enormous a reversal as it sounds? Or as bizarre?

I wrote in yesterday's column about Seymour Hersh's article in the New Yorker, in which he asserts that Cheney has succeeded in redirecting Bush administration policy in the Middle East to supporting Sunnis at the expense of Iranian-backed Shiites.

By contrast, Robin Wright and Peter Baker wrote in The Washington Post as recently as December that Cheney was pushing for an Iraq plan that "would concentrate political attention on supporting the majority Shiites and abandon U.S. efforts to reach out to Sunni insurgents. . . .

"On the political front, the administration is focusing increasingly on variations of a 'Shiite tilt,' sometimes called an '80 percent solution,' that would bolster the political center of Iraq and effectively leave in charge the Shiite and Kurdish parties that account for 80 percent of Iraq's 26 million people and that won elections a year ago.

"Vice President Cheney's office has most vigorously argued for the '80 percent solution,' in terms of both realities on the ground and the history of U.S. engagement with the Shiites, sources say. A source familiar with the discussions said Cheney argued this week that the United States could not again be seen to abandon the Shiites, Iraq's largest population group, after calling in 1991 for them to rise up against then-President Saddam Hussein and then failing to support them when they did. Thousands were killed in a huge crackdown."

As Andrew Sullivan blogs: "Not so long ago, we were told that Cheney favored a pro-Shiite solution in Iraq and the region. Now, we're told he's decided to vest American interests and young American lives into supporting the Sunni side of a growing regional war, even if that means that the Saudis are funding terror groups that have close ties to al Qaeda."

Cheney's Power

White House Watch reader Joseph Britt of Sun Prairie, Wis., writes in response to yesterday's column about Cheney's omnipresence: "It's interesting that very expansive claims of Presidential authority have over the last few years been made on behalf of a President so weak that he has done what none of his 42 predecessors ever did -- assign vast responsibilities for making and implementing policy to the one official he cannot fire. . . . I wonder that this aspect of the Bush administration has been so little remarked on; one would think that something that had never happened in over two centuries would attract more notice."