White House Neighbor on Fire

But detected deadly White House toxin turned out to be false alarm

(NEWSER) - Condoleezza Rice recounted the day that she, President Bush, and Dick Cheney believed they had been exposed to a lethal toxin by terrorists. Cheney suddenly appeared on a secure video conference screen just weeks after 9/11 while Rice and Bush were traveling in China for the APEC summit. He warned them that White House sensors had detected botulinum toxin, and "we all—those of us exposed—were going to die," Rice revealed in an ABC interview . "I remember everybody just sort of freezing, and the president saying, ‘What was that? What was that, Dick?’” recalled Rice, who was national security adviser at the time. “We were just a little unnerved." More»

He rips 'Incestuous' oil-White House liaison

(NEWSER) - Hardball's Chris Matthews insisted yesterday that former Vice President Dick Cheney be forced to testify on the Gulf oIl spill after "looking out for" Big Oil in the White House fresh from his job as CEO of Halliburton. Cheney held several "secret meetings" with oil companies, including BP and Halliburton, in the White House as he worked out former President Bush's energy policy, said Matthews. The companies involved in the operation gushing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf—BP, Halliburton and Transocean—are all blaming one another for the debacle. More»

Terrorism talk usually bad for Dems but good for Obama

(NEWSER) - Talk of terrorism usually boosts Republicans and gives Democrats fits, but the White House is more than happy to face off with Dick Cheney on the issue, as Joe Biden did yesterday. Cheney is an appealing sparring partner, James Hohmann writes on Politico : one of the most unpopular members of the Bush administration, a polarizing figure who makes Obama look reasonable by comparison, and conservative enough that anyone who really likes him wouldn't vote for Obama anyway. More»

(NEWSER) - Dick Cheney asserted today that "we don't torture" but said the limited use of "enhanced interrogation" such as waterboarding yielded information that helped fend off terror attacks, the Washington Examiner reports. Cheney told a roundtable of conservative journalists that the administration doesn't get enough credit for "what didn't happen." He added that "President Obama is going to have his hands full" because "it's a big, complex, dangerous world out there." More»

Millions still due to be released in a month

(NEWSER) - Technical snags and lawsuits are holding up the release of hundreds of millions of Bush White House emails to the National Archives, the Washington Post reports. Historians and nonprofits are in a legal battle with the White House, as administration officials sift through backup tapes to recover lost documents. "We are worried," said the director of a historical association. "There is a context that is not reassuring." More»