Cheney Offers False Excuse For His ‘So?’

Thinkprogress:

ABC’s Martha Raddatz that he doesn’t care about the American public’s views on the war:

RADDATZ: Two-third of Americans say it’s [the Iraq war’s] not worth fighting.
CHENEY: So?

RADDATZ So? You don’t care what the American people think?

CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.

Cheney was roundly criticized for his remarks. Even Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly said Cheney was being a “wise guy” and “dismissed the folks” with his comments. A poll released a couple of weeks later found that 81 percent of the American public believed that when making an “important decision,” government leaders “should pay attention to public opinion polls.” During his speech at the National Press Club today, the moderator gave Cheney a chance to apologize. “Do you wish that you had answered that question differently?” she asked.

“Does it matter if the public disagrees sharply with the wisdom of the war?” Cheney instead made up an excuse about his initial comments, claiming that Martha had never asked him a direct question:

MODERATOR: Do you wish you had answered that question differently? Does it matter if the public disagrees sharply with the wisdom of the war?

CHENEY: No, when I said, “So?” the point was, “What’s the question, Martha?” She made the statement; she didn’t ask question.

And he is not going to read McClellan's book:

Commenting for the first time on Scott McClellan’s new book, Vice President Dick Cheney said in an event at the National Press Club this afternoon, “I haven’t read Scott McClellan’s book. I don’t plan to read Scott McClellan’s book anytime soon.” Later in the same event, when asked what he thought of tell-all books by former administration insiders, Cheney said, “I thought Bob Dole got it about right.”