It's Times Like This When It Would Be Nice If We Had Reporters Or A Congress

Here's Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild, writing for the Huffington Post. Note the dates are more than four months ago:

My cousin Larry Russell, a travel writer, spent three weeks (May 11 through May 31 of 2007) in Jordan as a guest of the Jordanian Tourist Board. He was invited to dinner at the home of Karim Kawar, Jordan's ex- ambassador to the United States (2002-06), in Amman. Dick Cheney and his daughter were Kawar's guests two nights before Larry arrived. Kawar confided to Larry that "Cheney's mission was to sound out the reaction to a forthcoming bombing of Iran's nuclear sites (no ground invasion planned) by the U.S. from Jordan's King Abdullah and President Mubarak of Egypt. They both rejected the idea."

When Larry pointed out that Jordan and Egypt receive regular economic and military equipment assistance from the United States so any resistance to this plan on their parts would probably be of a token nature at best, Kawar just smiled.

Here's an AP story datelined May 8th:

Mr. Cheney departed Tuesday on a weeklong trip to the Middle East right after a visit to the region by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

While Ms. Rice's trip had a wide-ranging agenda, administration officials said Mr. Cheney would focus largely on the next steps in Iraq.

His first stop will be Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. Other announced stops include Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. He will also visit the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis in the Persian Gulf.

What can Mr. Cheney bring to the region that Ms. Rice could not?

''The vice president is somebody who has long relations with many of the key leaders in the region, and therefore, is able to deal with them on a basis of personal trust and confidence,'' said the White House press secretary, Tony Snow.

''They can have conversations that are candid, that are detailed, that are respectful,'' he said.

Perhaps it exists, but I've never seen coverage beyond this of what Cheney discussed at these meetings.