IRONY IS ALIVE AND WELL

Headline: "GAO: Cheyney stifled energy probe."

The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said it was impossible to tell how much energy companies or industry groups may have influenced the task force’s 2001 report because the administration withheld important records.

“The extent to which submissions from any of these stakeholders were solicited, influenced policy deliberations or were incorporated into the final report is not something that we can determine based on the limited information at our disposal,” the GAO said.

Administration officials did not account for much of the money spent on the task force and could not remember whether anyone took official notes during the 10 Cabinet-level meetings the group held in 2001, the investigators said.

The report came more than eight months after a federal judge rejected the GAO’s demand that the administration turn over task force records.

Cheney spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise advised critics to put the dispute behind them. “Now that the courts have dismissed the GAO lawsuit and GAO has issued its final report, we hope that everyone will focus as strongly as the administration has on meeting America’s energy needs,” she said.

Instead, the GAO report provoked a new round of complaints from Democrats in Congress.

“This report is a sad chronicle of the efforts of the office of the vice president to hide its activities from the American people,” said Michigan Rep. John Dingell, the senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

"We hope that everyone will focus as strongly as the administration has on meeting America’s energy needs." With a straight face, she said that.

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