Low Expectations for Cheney Trip

When it comes to today's visit by the beleaguered, credibility-challenged vice president to leaders of the fractured, mostly powerless government of war-torn Iraq, the White House is setting expectations appropriately low.

On board Vice President Cheney's plane, as it made a not-entirely-unexpected stop in Iraq at the start of a weeklong tour of the Middle East, U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker told reporters that one of Cheney's main goals was to pressure Iraqi leaders not to go on vacation for two months in the middle of what is shaping up to be a highly decisive summer.

Cheney is likely to be able to claim success on this front -- if no other. That's because signs are that his goal has already been accomplished

Michael Gordon writes in today's New York Times that Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, who was in Washington yesterday lobbying American lawmakers, has already gotten the message that the vacation plan has been infuriating war supporters and opponents alike.

Rubaie, Gordon writes, "asserted that the Iraqi Parliament would abbreviate its traditional two-month summer vacation and take perhaps no more than a week off."

Hooray for Cheney! Can victory in Iraq be far behind?

'Game Time'

The other message Cheney brings: "It's game time" -- raising the question what has it been up until now exactly?

Todd J. Gillman of the Dallas Morning News is liveblogging the vice president's trip -- complete with photos -- as well as filing pool reports to his print colleagues.

Gillman writes in a pool report that "according to a senior administration official who gaggled en route and on background, the message Cheney is bringing boils down to this:

"'We've all got challenges together. We've got to pull together. We've got to get this work done. It's game time.'

"The urgency of the situation also came through as this same senior official said: 'Everybody's got to sit down, raise their game, redouble their efforts.'"

(Based on this senior administration official's use of the third-person when referring to Cheney, we'll just have to assume it's not the vice president himself, as it was in a now-notorious background briefing during Cheney's last international trip, in February -- see my Feb. 28 column, Cheney's Rules for the Press. Instead, we can reasonably assume it was one of the three top aides Gillman reports are traveling with Cheney in Iraq: his chief of staff, David Addington; his national security adviser, John Hannah; and Hannah's deputy, Samantha Ravich.