rubber room

rubber room
 n.— «Reluctant to mess with the Speaker’s monument without strong backup, the G.S.A. boss, Gerald Carmen, asked for a report from his Office of Oversight, which is headed by William Clinkscales, who gained fame during the Carter years by blowing the whistle on Federal waste. For that, the Carterites had placed him in a “rubber room”—bureaucratese for an office without work to do—until Republicans came in and made him the agency’s official whistleblower.» —“Ozymondias O’Neill” by William Safire New York Times Apr. 11, 1983. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)