Belligerence and Cowardice: What Else Could You Ask for in a VP?
Of course I didn't (couldn't) watch the Cheney primping on Faux News yesterday. I have an actual digestive tract to care for, do you mind? I do wonder how the experience might have compared with a SOTU-viewing, another experience any sentient, self-aware creature obviously avoids.
It certainly would have been harder to resist (and would have actually better served his clientele - the public) had he chosen to appear on Oprah or Dr. Phil. Obviously he was unwilling to risk an encounter with any actual journalists or reporters.
Of course these days it's no problem getting timely reports and commentary on almost any danged thing you want if your search-engine skills and or "favorites" lists are well-endowed. But I have come to understand that even those with a keyboard sometimes are prone to the potato behavior formerly associated with the idiot box. So, in case you also missed Brit Hume on his knees putting salve on the VP's tender secrets and are lacking for insights, here's a bit to get you started, courtesy of DailyKos:
Cheney Chooses to Hide Behind Fox's Skirts
If there were any lingering doubts about Fox serving as the "Mommy" network for the Bush administration - kissing the group's numerous self-inflicted owies to make them go away - those doubts were laid to rest yesterday with the Brit Hume interview of Dick Cheney.
The Los Angeles Times this morning outlines some of the criticisms leveled at Cheney's choice of venue for "coming clean":
"Now that he feels forced to talk, he wants to restrict the discussion to a friendly news outlet, guaranteeing no hard questions from the press corps," said Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) in a statement.
[clip]
Add to the Mommy network's amazing "kiss it and make it better' powers - on top of a softball interviewer on the most sympathetic channel in "newsdom" - the unremarked-upon phenomenon of a managed, delayed and massaged video clip being presented as a heartfelt, spontaneous confessional. The swashbuckling, he-man image of the Bush administration couldn't withstand a live or unedited version of Cheney's account of events; even with the propaganda playing field tilted seriously in Cheney's favor, Fox was unwilling to risk the possibility of an unfavorable view of the vice president making it to the public. Think of it as air-brushing the airwaves and you've pretty much got the sad and sorry picture.
[clip]
Rove worried the vice president's silence on the issue was becoming a political problem, CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports.
Cheney is in a "state of meltdown" over shooting his friend and the political fallout it has caused, a source close to the Cheney has told CBS News.
The most ridiculous part of Rove's "switch the victim" strategy is portraying Whittington family members - with their 78-year-old patriarch lying in ICU with gunshot lodged near his atria - as fretting over Cheney's state of mind in the aftermath of the accident.
[clip]
For heaven's sake, get the vice president out in a public, no-holds-barred press conference instead of hiding timidly behind Fox's feel-good skirts. The whole fiasco is reeking of ... well ... unmanliness.
It certainly would have been harder to resist (and would have actually better served his clientele - the public) had he chosen to appear on Oprah or Dr. Phil. Obviously he was unwilling to risk an encounter with any actual journalists or reporters.
Of course these days it's no problem getting timely reports and commentary on almost any danged thing you want if your search-engine skills and or "favorites" lists are well-endowed. But I have come to understand that even those with a keyboard sometimes are prone to the potato behavior formerly associated with the idiot box. So, in case you also missed Brit Hume on his knees putting salve on the VP's tender secrets and are lacking for insights, here's a bit to get you started, courtesy of DailyKos:
Cheney Chooses to Hide Behind Fox's Skirts
If there were any lingering doubts about Fox serving as the "Mommy" network for the Bush administration - kissing the group's numerous self-inflicted owies to make them go away - those doubts were laid to rest yesterday with the Brit Hume interview of Dick Cheney.
The Los Angeles Times this morning outlines some of the criticisms leveled at Cheney's choice of venue for "coming clean":
"Now that he feels forced to talk, he wants to restrict the discussion to a friendly news outlet, guaranteeing no hard questions from the press corps," said Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) in a statement.
[clip]
Add to the Mommy network's amazing "kiss it and make it better' powers - on top of a softball interviewer on the most sympathetic channel in "newsdom" - the unremarked-upon phenomenon of a managed, delayed and massaged video clip being presented as a heartfelt, spontaneous confessional. The swashbuckling, he-man image of the Bush administration couldn't withstand a live or unedited version of Cheney's account of events; even with the propaganda playing field tilted seriously in Cheney's favor, Fox was unwilling to risk the possibility of an unfavorable view of the vice president making it to the public. Think of it as air-brushing the airwaves and you've pretty much got the sad and sorry picture.
[clip]
Rove worried the vice president's silence on the issue was becoming a political problem, CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports.
Cheney is in a "state of meltdown" over shooting his friend and the political fallout it has caused, a source close to the Cheney has told CBS News.
The most ridiculous part of Rove's "switch the victim" strategy is portraying Whittington family members - with their 78-year-old patriarch lying in ICU with gunshot lodged near his atria - as fretting over Cheney's state of mind in the aftermath of the accident.
[clip]
For heaven's sake, get the vice president out in a public, no-holds-barred press conference instead of hiding timidly behind Fox's feel-good skirts. The whole fiasco is reeking of ... well ... unmanliness.
posted by Sir Gumbo at 11:04 PM
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