Cheney To Speak To Fox News This Afternoon
Well, it’s a friendly audience, but an audience nonetheless:
Vice President Dick Cheney, publicly silent since accidentally shooting a Texas lawyer while hunting last week, will offer his first words on the incident Wednesday, the White House said.
Cheney will be interviewed by Fox News at 2 p.m. ET, White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters.
Hilariously, the Democraic leadership left a breakfast with Cheney, one in which they didn’t even mention the need to come forward, and immediately went to the press to tell the VP to come forward:
The announcement occurred after Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the top-ranking Democrat in the House, emerged from a White House breakfast meeting with President Bush and Cheney to say the vice president needed to come forward.
“I guess I’m kind of old-fashioned,” Reid said. “He hasn’t had a press conference in three and a half years.”
Said Pelosi: “Open government demands that the vice president come clean with what happened … There’s probably a very simple answer to it, but we have to break this habit of the administration, of closed government without the openness that is healthy to a democracy.”
They said they did not tell Cheney to his face that he should come forward and that the vice president said little during the breakfast.
Ohhh…brave, brave leadership…
UPDATE 11:03 a.m.: Fox News says the interview will be shown at 6 p.m. and midnight Eastern time…
UPDATE 2 1:58 p.m.: I guess the interview has already been taped, because those ‘breaking news’ doohickeys are saying Cheney ‘took responsibility for the accident’ in the interview…
I think it is disappointing that Cheney would choose Fox News. High elected officials are responsible for defending their actions to the public, and this involves answering direct questions. Bush rarely has press conferences, and Cheney seemingly never has them. Neither man faces a public audience which is not composed of the military, donors at fund-raisers, and pre-screened campaign rallies. Choosing a sycophantic right wing medium to ask softball questions shows that Cheney is not interested in being accountable for his actions.
Another question raised by Saturday’s events is: what would have happened if Wittington shot Cheney instead? Is it reckless for the Vice President to go hunting? We wouldn’t want the President or VP to go sky diving, bungee jumping, or racing Formula One racecars –
Peter,
Isn’t that the same reason Clinton went on 60 Minutes back in ’92 to talk about the Gennifer Flowers episode?
Choosing a sycophantic _left_ wing medium to ask softball questions shows that _Clinton_ is not interested in being accountable for his actions.
At least in Cheney’s case, the whole thing was an accident.
Maybe Cheney chose Fox News because they have a higher viewership than all the other cable news channels combined–reach a wider audience…
When Clinton was on 60 Minutes, he was a candidate – not a President.
Also, I would not describe Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, or Ed Bradley as sycophants – they ask tough questions of everyone. Nor is CBS run by a former partisan like Roger Ailes.
As for the Fox News audience: obviously every other medium will report on the interview, so the actual audience to Fox is irrelevant.
Oh, Peter, you’re so young. Perhaps you didn’t catch the Clinton interview in 1992. Not a tough question to be found, at least not one that was followed up after a lip-biting shallow response.
I don’t think you can call Brit Hume a sycophant either, but you’re the one who used the word in the first place.
If you don’t think CBS is partisan, then you just haven’t been paying attention. I could tell you stories about 60 Minutes slants that would make your head spin, but that’s not the point.
I guess you’d rather Vice President (yeah, he’s not President either) Cheney sat down with David Gregory. Yeah, that would be a worthwhile use of his time…
Peter-
In the 1992 interview, Governor and Mrs. Clinton were interviewed by Steve Kroft — with a prearrangement that he wouldn’t press them on then-Governor Clinton’s ambiguous non-answer: “I have acknowledged causing pain in my marriage. I think most Americans who are watching this tonight, they’ll know what we’re saying, they’ll get it, and they’ll feel we have been more than candid.” and absolutely would not ask Governor Clinton the one hard question that everyone wanted him to answer: Have you cheated on your wife?
“…they ask tough questions of everyone. Nor is CBS run by a former partisan like…”
CBS, as in Dan Rather? Bernard Goldberg could enlighten you greatly concerning the rest of the operation’s biases, particularly concerning the 60 – minutes crew. Incidentally, not one defamation or libel suit was ever filed against him after his “Biased” book was published awhile ago.
As we’ve discussed before, Fox of course is partisan, and they’re not pansy about admitting it, either. If only their supposed bettors would do likewise, since the rest of the country already knows where they stand these days.
Young? I wish. I remember ten cent Cokes and fifteen cent bottles of Tester’s paint for model airplanes.
You don’t have to try very hard to figure out what Brit Hume’s politics are. He is also fawning to those he agrees with and disdainful of those he doesn’t. Watch him sneer and roll his eyes in his Grapevine segment.
I don’t think CNN or the major networks are partisan. Quite the opposite: I think they have been bullied by the right and have diluted their news coverage in an attempt to be “balanced.” A good case in point is the failure to ask hard questions about WMD in the march to war.
60 Minutes is not a news show – it is investigative journalism – while they have an obligation to report factually, the purpose is to expose things which would otherwise be hidden. They are muck-rakers in a tradition which goes back to Upton Sinclair. Very different than, say, CBS Evening News.
As for Clinton’s answer in 60 Minutes: nothing ambiguous about it. He had sex with other women besides Hillary. I don’t think anyone can have any other conclusion from what Clinton said.
“
Peter–With all due respect, I think you might have received some brain damage when you got exposed to your model plane glue. If you believe you are going to convince anyone that Ed Bradley or Mike Wallace, the folks at CNN, or “the major networks” are less partisan than Brit Hume, brain damage is the only conclusion. Your comment about their attempt to be “balanced” says it all. Non-partisan news groups don’t have to “attempt” to be balanced–by definition, they would be balanced.
I’ll just close by mentioning that many of Goldberg’s points were never refuted by the powers – that – be at CBS news, particularly the one in which he disclosed the voting preferences among his former colleagues. He estimated that they voted over 85% of the time for the Democratic ticket, and no one has refuted this claim.
Ok, so say the hell with Goldberg – what else ya got? How about the Pew research center:
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=829
Pew’s results indicate that the people in the pressrooms of America are 5 times more likely to be of a liberal than of a conservative bent.
There’s no one today who says with a straight face that one’s personal political preferences don’t influence their reporting on an opposing administration. We have memoirs from Jack Germond, Walter Cronkite, and statements from Don Hewitt and Bill Moyers that have made that logical assumption abundantly clear. Pretending that reporters are not human beings but infallible automotons is not only illogical to suggest, it’s dishonest.
I think 60 Minutes is perceived to have a liberal bias because of the nature of investigative reporting. The current lead piece on their site is a report stating that “Billions of dollars for the reconstruction of Iraq are unaccounted for because, says a U.S. official, oversight was ‘nonexistent.’” You might look at that and say that it is anti-Bush because it draws attention to how the occupation is being mismanaged. I look at the piece and say that it is reporting on an issue of vital interest. Looked at from any metric – sewage, hours of electricity, oil output, security, etc. – things are a mess. If reporting on the occupation looks liberal because it makes Bush look bad, so be it. Are you suggesting that the media simply ignore the facts on the ground (or the budget deficit, or the unusable FEMA trailers on the mud in Arkansas, etc.)?
I don’t dispute that journalists may be more liberal than most, but I think they have been so bullied that, if anything, they shade things in the other direction. For daily evidence of this, I refer you to the excellent, George Soros-financed website
http://mediamatters.org/
Every piece in the site relies and direct transcripts (and most have video clips). You can argue all you want about the ideology of those who edit this site, but you can’t argue with a video clip.
Peter,
I remember 19 cents a gallon gasoline. I agree with you that Brit and Fox are right wing on the news and I would not be surprised that Cheney even wrote the questions that Brit asked. I am a bit disappointed that he gave in and did the interview. He did not owe me anything. In my opinion, this was all about power and the LSM grandstanding that they are the ones in control of the news that comes out of the White House. They are not happy that they did not know about the event first and wanted to shove his face in it. They are happy now that they forced him to appear even if on Fox. End of story unless something bad happens to the hunter. We appear to have different opinions on this event.
BTW, mediamatters is a left wing group. I have read them before and just shake my head in disgust.
On the sunny side of the street, how is the land of freaks and geeks today? The Bay area has a special place in my heart. I will be visiting in June.
Peter-
“60 Minutes” is perceived to have a left-wing bias because those choosing its content actually do have a left-wing bias, which is clearly reflected in their content — at least when they choose to cover political news.
During the 2004 election, they were in bed with Dan Rather and Mary Mapes on the TANG slander. How many episodes did they devote to slandering John Kerry?
Re: mediamatters…
(1) George Soros is your example of a non-partisan source?!?!
(2) Argument by “video clip” is also known as argument by anecdote. General trends can’t be demonstrated by anecdotes — they have to be demonstrated with statistics. This is very, very basic logic.
Muffin: let’s suppose that Dick Cheney was driving a car and hit a pedestrian, sending him to the hospital. Isn’t this something that you would want to know? Wouldn’t you want to know if he saw a policeman at the site of the accident, if he was driving impaired, or if he was driving at 80 miles per hour?
When Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, he was a private citizen who could do pretty much whatever he wanted without public scrutiny. When you are elected to high public office, you lose your privacy and your actions are the legitimate subject of public scrutiny. We have a right to know if the second highest elected government official is acting foolishly or recklessly. The government does not have the right to obscure or delay reporting what happened.
This is because an enormous amount of power resides in the President and VP, including control of the government, the military, and nuclear weaponry. We have the right to know if they can act coolly and responsibly (one reason why Ted Kennedy’s Presidential ambitions ended abruptly at Chappaquiddick). We also have the right to know if the strains of office have led to erratic behavior. (Personally, if I knew that my policy mistakes led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, I would feel pretty guilty about it.) One can only imagine the enormous personal strain of high office – it would not be out of the question for someone in that position to become depressed or to act recklessly or irrationally. If this is the case, we clearly have the right to know. (We all know that Clinton acted recklessly with Monica – and I don’t recall any voices from the right urging restraint on the press).
Had Cheney reported the shooting to a policeman, we would know that he was sober. The only evidence we have is offered by his friends and cronies. Maybe, as Cheney’s apologists insist, he was sober and it was just a regrettable accident. Had the incident been reported quickly and fully, this would not be an issue. By waiting until morning to report it, it is an open question which will never have a definitive answer.
So this is not about the press throwing a tantrum about not “controlling” the news. Rather, it is about the press doing its job, which is to pry information from a recalcitrant and secretive administration about something which is clearly in the public interest.
Clint: I’m not a regular 60 Minutes watcher, so I don’t know how they covered Kerry. However, I remember how the mainstream media relentlessly covered the Swift Boat slanders, which were timed to be released around the time of the conventions, stopping him in his tracks. The responsible thing would have been to simply ignore the Swift Boaters, as there was no truth in their assertions. It would be like putting Kitty Kelly as the lead feature in the news so we could hear unsubstantiated rumors about Laura Bush being a high school cocaine dealer.
As for George Soros and Media Matters: no doubt they are ideologues with a leftist point of view. My point about video clips is that, regardless of their views, the charges in their site are well documented. As to the clips being anecdotal rather than statistical: this is true, but the sheer volume of documented instances showing how mainstream media present news with a conservative bias challenge the widespread myth of the news as the embodiment of liberal thought and values.
We just have a different viewpoint on the situation. Nothing in my opinion showed up in his “interview” with Fox News. Being a very faithful Republican, I give Cheney the benefit of the doubt and accept his rendition of the event. Due to your political nature, you have a tendency to want more questions answered. You don’t trust Cheney as much as I do. OK, you probably don’t trust him at all and I doubt you have any trust in Bush but that is another subject for another thread on another day.
In my opinion, one of the possible reasons for the delay in letting the LSM know about the event is the distrust between them and this Administration. I don’t feel there is any love lost between them. Neither trusts the other. The Administration feels the LSM is out to get them. This distrust has been in place since “day one” that Bush took office and I doubt it will change anytime soon. Who’s at fault with the “distrust” issue is again a matter of opinion.
Our opinions are typical of the divide between left and right wing politics in America. In talking with a Democrat today a work he expressed displeasure with Cheney but nothing against Clinton for his actions while in the White House. Now how typical is that comment coming from a Democrat? You did notice that I knocked Fox for being a right wing station and even insinuated that Cheney wrote the questions himself? I can see a fake “interview” a half mile away. Both Republican and Democrats do them and probably pay for them too. It’s like opening up the paper and seeing a story above the fold and saying to yourself “I wonder who paid for that?”
Day is done,
gone the sun,
From the hills,
from the lake,
From the skies.
All is well,
safely rest,
God is nigh.
I think most (if not nearly all) Democrats were disgusted by Clinton’s behavior with Monica, Gennifer, and all the other big hair women. (Although who knows what any of us would do if we were President and basically had unlimited sexual access to lots and lots of women. This may be a shock, but that kind of access is foreign to my experience.)
However, most Democrats feel that it was a private affair which he should not have been hounded for relentlessly, and he certainly should not have been impeached for it (or, to be more precise, impeached for testimony given in a right wing-financed civil suit designed to weaken him politically). We’ve had lots of adulterous Presidents who nonetheless did good jobs: FDR, Eisenhower, JFK. To be sure, it’s bad behavior and a red flag about his true nature — but not deserving of everything which followed from it.
Peter,
Are you really that dumb? Do you really think you can convince anyone that duckspeak of the media is anything other than a left wing conception?
The Secret Service is a POLICE organization. They were on the scene; they contacted the local police organization, and contacted and reported the shooting accident with in an hour of its occurance to the locals.
You refuse to accept their side of the report. OTOH, You and your fellow Jackasses refused to believe the state troopers assigned to Mr Clinton,as bodyguards, that confirmed the blatent illegality practiced by Mr. Clinton in forcing a state employee into his hotel room where he was waiting for in a state of undress. They objected to being turned into pimps, but you never complained or paid the least attention.
As for the measures of civilization in Baghdad, as measured by hours for sabotage is taking place by the “insurgents ” as you call them, refusing ever to use their own self chosen name for themselves, i.e. “Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia”. Meanwhile you support the fiction that Iraq has nothing to do with Al Qaeda.
In measuring ‘progress’ in Iraq, there are 18 provinces, 14 of which have no war anymore, and are in fact safer than the streets of Paris, Madrid, London or NYC. Of the last 4 provinces, two are on the verge of joining the other 14 as having the war over, and only two still having common terrorist activity. But even there, there are no longer any safe towns with uncontested control by Al Qaeda as was true of Fallujah for example, a year ago at this time.
Too Bad for your world view, reality intrudes, occasionally.
Your comment about Clinton’s lurid affairs being “private” is interesting. Cheney was not acting in an official role when he was hunting. He was at a friend’s ranch partaking in a hobby. Would you not consider this event then “private” and only his business?
Clinton was in the hallway next to the Oval office during normal working hours. Again, you are making excuses to fit your political philosophy. I will agree with you that impeaching Clinton was wrong and should not have been done. It was done to shove his face in it and no other reason. However he should have been censured. He did lose his law license for 5 years over the false testimony which he deserved and was sued from a civil standpoint and settled out of court.