The Axis of No Access Should we be countering the Axis of Evil with the Axis of No Access? Should our leaders leave a free press at home when they go to talk to regimes that do not countenance a free press?
Aren't we supposed to be influencing the Saudis and other Middle Eastern countries in the direction of honesty and transparency? Instead, the vice president emulates his Saudi friends — operating with high-handed secrecy, plotting with cronies to develop a petrostate, and restricting the press — just as he did during Desert Storm.
Cheney staffers came up with numerous explanations why it may be difficult to take the press — all of them silly. They're not the president: they don't have two planes. They don't have the resources. They don't have the staff. They're going to a very insecure region.