Residual Forces

Does Pat Kessler, who recently claimed that the Sunday Morning talk shows have a majority of Conservative guests, think that this is just moderate political speech? (From Sun, Feb 19 Meet the Press)

MS. MAUREEN DOWD:  Well, I think that the reason this story has evoked such fascination is because the vice president is like the phantom. You know, we hear the creak of the door as he passes, but we don’t really know what he’s up to. We don’t know his schedule. We don’t always know where he is. We don’t know what democratic institution he’s blowing off at any given minute, and so this allowed us to see how his behavior and judgement operated pretty much in real time—with the delay, but pretty much in real time.

And it covered all the problems of the Bush/Cheney administration:  secrecy and stonewalling, then blowing off the rules that are at the heart of our democracy, then using a filter to try and put the truth out in a way that would most suit their political needs, and then bad political judgement in bungling a crisis. I mean, if there’s one thing the Republicans are great at since Reagan, it’s damage control. But he is such a control freak, you know, he doesn’t even care about the damage.

Tim Russert’s response: Nothing

MS. DOWD:  Mary, it isn’t only the press. He blows off the FISA courts, he blows off the Geneva Conventions, he blows off the U.N. to go to Iraq. He wants to blow off everything. He’s got a fever of about presidential erosion just the way he had a fever about going into Iraq.

Tim Russert: Again, nothing

MS. DOWD:  But then he shot his friend and blames his friend.

Tim’s got an answer this time.

MR. RUSSERT:  Can I just pick up on that?  The Democrats were very, very outspoken, as you might expect. The front-runner for the Democratic nomination 2008, the senator from New York, Hillary Clinton, had a news conference, and this is what she offered.

(Videotape, February 14, 2006)

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON, (D-NY):  A tendency of this administration from the top all the way to the bottom is to withhold information, to resist legitimate requests for information, to refuse to be forthcoming about information that is of significance and relevant to the job that all of you do and the interest of the American people. The refusal of this administration to level with the American people on matters large and small is very disturbing.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  How do you respond?

Good job Tim. 

MS. DOWD:  But I think reporters would have had a lot of empathy for the vice president if he hadn’t sent people out for four days to blame the victim. I mean, you know, I went hunting with Reagan and Bush Sr. and I’ve been on all these Republican hunting trips, and—but I’ve learned a lot about hunting this week. And the thing I’ve learned is that the shooter bears total responsibility for where everyone in the party is before he shoots, and they shoot abreast, not while someone’s fetching a duck. So for him to send all these people out to blame this guy for so many days was not appropriate.

Get the point yet? The Democratic talking point for the coming week is: Cheney and the Republicans are blaming the victim.

MS. DOWD:  Well, I do think, you know, I appreciate the vice president’s attempts to put on a sweet pink tie and, you know, to tell Wyoming about, you know, his lust as a newlywed. But I think Mary had a very difficult job humanizing Dick Cheney, because I don’t think he has given us much chance to see him as a human being.

This is what passes for a serious political analyst on NBC. Dowd has some kind of infatuation with Cheney. Her focus is entirely on Cheney, and she never bats an eye about talking this way about him. But what is worse than her being perceived to the public as a credible and objective political commentator, is the way the press types like Russert just let her spout off.

Dowd is just one of the many on the left who have pinned their career to demonizing Bush/Cheney. To people like me, I see right through her hatred and partisan words. She throws up these attacks, and statements with out proof, evidence, or facts. What is sad is that her blind hatred for Cheney is being missed by the MSM. Russert and the likes continue to have her on. They continue to allow her to spread lies and defamous lies about the Vice President of the Unites States.

This is media bias. There is no better example of it than situations like this. When the press continues to allow someone who has lost her ability to put her hatred aside and act, at least in standard partisan form, one has to question the motives of the media’s motives. Why would they have on a guest who you know exactly what she’ll say?

Maybe because you can’t say it yourself.