So, Dick Cheney’s secret, undisclosed location was actually a bunker built directly under his home in the Naval Observatory. I guess you call that ‘hiding in the plain sight.’ It looks like Cheney had the bunker built in 2002, probably at great taxpayer expense. And Joe Biden casually divulged this information to some reporters at this year’s Gridiron Club dinner where he was filling in for the president.
Eleanor Clift, Newsweek magazine’s Washington contributing editor, said Biden revealed the location while filling in for President Obama at the dinner, who, along with Grover Cleveland, is the only president to skip the gathering.
According to the report, Biden “said a young naval officer giving him a tour of the residence showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment.”
Clift continued: “The officer explained that when Cheney was in lock down, this was where his most trusted aides were stationed, an image that Biden conveyed in a way that suggested we shouldn’t be surprised that the policies that emerged were off the wall.”
It’s not entirely clear from the literal reading of that report whether this was really Cheney’s hidey-hole, or just the location he used for his staff. Either way, though, Vice-President Biden wasn’t really using his head when he decided to declassify this information. The Republicans will have a field day criticizing Biden for imperiling his own life and wasting taxpayer dollars.
In the big picture, this isn’t that big of a deal, but it certainly warrants a slap-down from Obama. This isn’t how you run a ship of state.
