Time for another blogger ethics panel. Liz Cheney pals around with terrorists! OK, that's not true. She's allowed to say it about anyone mind you. She actually pals around with the media that's supposed to cover her politics.
Susan G at Dkos caught a brilliant illustration of the Village mentality in this New York magazine profile of Liz Cheney:
Fox is a regular pulpit, of course, but Liz is also all over NBC, where she happens to be social friends with Meet the Press host David Gregory (whose wife worked with Liz ’s husband at the law firm Latham & Watkins), family friends with Justice Department reporter Pete Williams (Dick Cheney’s press aide when he was secretary of Defense), and neighborhood friends with Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, daughter of Carter-administration national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. When Mika criticized Dick Cheney on her show last year, the former vice-president sent her a box of chocolate cupcakes.
[...]
Liz’s friends say she sets the bar for all-American normality: She watches Mad Men and 24 on TV, drives an SUV, attends Girl Scout meetings, and is frequently spotted on the sidelines of soccer fields, trading gossip with people like Terry McAuliffe, Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler, and other power players whose kids go to the Country Day School or the Potomac School.
The fact that these All American folks are also millionaire celebrities with the most powerful people in the world on their speed dials shouldn't be taken as signs that they aren't just like you and me. In fact, they are Real Americans in ways that the frou-frou coastal liberal elites will never understand.
And as Susan rightly notes, there is another teensy problem with this comfortable arrangement:
This idea that the national press corps can cozy up to sources or people in power they cover during afternoon soccer games or over Saturday night dinners, then turn around and hold their feet to the fire is ridiculous. You know it. I know it. Everyone outside of Beltway zip codes knows that. Hell, anyone who's ever tried to challenge a neighbor at a local meeting knows it.
But the Village? Meh. They have their own rules. And cupcakes.
Read the rest of the transcript. It's quite enlightening.
BLITZER: It made it sound -- and there's been interpretation to this effect -- that he was in effect confirming that the United States used this waterboarding, this technique that has been rejected by the international community that simulates a prisoner being drowned, if you will, and he was in effect, supposedly, confirming that the United States has been using that.
CHENEY: No, Wolf -- that is a mighty house you're building on top of that mole hill there, a mighty mountain. This is complete distortion; he didn't say anything of the kind.
BLITZER: Because of the dunking of -- you know, using the water and the dunking.
CHENEY: Well, you know, I understand your point. It's kind of the point of a lot of people right now, to try to distort the administration's position, and if you really want to talk about that, I watched the program on CNN last night, which I though -- it's your 2006 voter program, which I thought was a terrible distortion of both the president and the vice president's position on many issues. It seemed almost straight out of Democratic talking points using phrasing like "domestic surveillance" when it's not domestic surveillance that anyone has talked about or ever done. It's surveillance of terrorists. It's people who have al Qaeda connections calling into the United States. So I think we're in the season of distortion, and this is just one more.
BLITZER: But there have been some cases where innocent people have been picked up, interrogated, held for long periods of time then simply said never mind, let go -- they're let go.
CHENEY: Well, are you sure these people are innocent?
BLITZER: They're walking around free right now and nobody has arrested them.
CHENEY: You made a point last night of a man who had a bookstore in London where radical Islamists gathered who was in Afghanistan when the Taliban were there, who went to Pakistan. You know, I think that you might be a little careful before you declare this as a person with clean hands.
BLITZER: You're referring to the CNN "BROKEN GOVERNMENT" special.
CHENEY: I certainly am.
BLITZER: This was the one that John King reported on last night.
CHENEY: Well, you know, right there, Wolf, "BROKEN GOVERNMENT." Now, what kind of stance is that? Here we are. We're a country where we have been mightily challenged over the past six years. We've been through 9/11. We've been through Katrina. The president and the vice president inherited a recession. We're a country where the economy is healthy. That's not broken. This government has acted very well. We've had tax cuts that are responsible for our healthy economy. We're a country that was attacked five years ago. We haven't been attacked since. What this government has done is effective. That's not broken government. So, you know, I shouldn't let media bias surprise me, but I worked at CNN once.
BLITZER: You worked ... (CROSSTALK)
CHENEY: I watched your program last night and I was troubled.
BLITZER: All right. Well, that was probably the purpose, to get people to think, to get people to discuss these issues because ... (CROSSTALK)
CHENEY: Well, all right, Wolf. I'm here to talk about my book, but if you want to talk about distortion ...
BLITZER: We'll talk about your book.
CHENEY: Well, right, but what is CNN doing running terrorist tapes of terrorists shooting Americans? I mean, I saw Duncan Hunter ask you a very good question and you didn't answer it. Do you want us to win?
BLITZER: The answer is, of course, we want the United States to win. We are Americans. There's no doubt about that. Do you think we want terrorists to win?
CHENEY: Then why are you running terrorist propaganda?
BLITZER: With all due respect -- with all due respect, this is not terrorist propaganda.
CHENEY: Oh, Wolf.
BLITZER: This is reporting the news which is what we do. We're not partisan.
CHENEY: Where did you get the film?
BLITZER: We got the film -- look, this is an issue that has been widely discussed. This is an issue that we have reported on extensively. We make no apologies for showing that. That was a very carefully considered decision, why we did that, and I think -- and I think -- that if you're ...
CHENEY: Well, I think it's shocking.
BLITZER: ...a serious journalist, you want to report the news. Sometimes the news is good, sometimes the news isn't so good but ...
CHENEY: But, Wolf, there's a difference between the news and terrorist propaganda. Why ...
It's quite possible that late Friday night, Wolf met Lynne in a bar and had a couple of drinks and talked about the weather.
BLITZER: On Friday in the Situation Room on CNN, I interviewed the wife of the Vice President, Lynne Cheney. The interview generated quite a bit of commotion and we are going to replay the unedited version. First, some history. I have been covering the Cheneys for many years, including on a day-to-day basis when he was the defense secretary during the first Gulf War and I was CNN’s Pentagon correspondent. This — Mrs. Cheney has been a frequent guest on my programs. I have often invited her to discuss her new children’s books. She always is open to discussing the news of the day.
In this most recent interview, she, of course, knew we would would be speaking about politics. That was reaffirmed to her staff only hours before the interview. As a former co-host of Crossfire during the 1990s, she knows her way around the media. She was never shy about sparring with Democratic strategist and co-host.
I was surprised when she came out swinging on Friday, surprised by what she said about the “Broken Government” series and the excellent one-hour report by our chief national correspondent John King. One of the most precise and respected journalists in Washington. The decision to air sniper video which Anderson Cooper branded, I’m quoting now, “a single propaganda tape.” Surprised at her sniping at my patriotism.
