Politico’s VandeHei and Allen Join the “Judy Miller Club for Cheney Stenographers”
graphic: ImageChef.com
Suppose you had a 90-minute interview with Dick Cheney just after a Senate report came out concluding–among other things–that,
After bin Laden’s escape, some military and intelligence analysts and the press criticized the Pentagon’s failure to mount a full-scale attack despite the tough rhetoric by President Bush. Franks, Vice President Dick Cheney and others defended the decision, arguing that the intelligence was inconclusive about the Al Qaeda leader’s location. But the review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants underlying this report removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora.
Don’t you think you’d ask him, explicitly, why he had defended the decision not to send US troops after Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora when it was clear that the decision had allowed bin Laden to escape? “Mr. Cheney,” you might ask, “it has been shown pretty irrefutably that you let OBL get away. Why’d you defend your decision allowing him to escape when you knew it had led to his escape? Why did you ignore Henry Crumpton’s warning–briefed to you and President Bush personally at the end of November 2001–that an escape route to Pakistan was wide open and Afghan troops wouldn’t prevent OBL form escaping through it?”
But this is as close as Jim “Pool Boy” VandeHei and Mike Allen got in an interview with Cheney:
But Cheney rejected any suggestion that Obama had to decide on a new strategy for Afghanistan because the one employed by the previous administration failed.
Cheney was asked if he thinks the Bush administration bears any responsibility for the disintegration of Afghanistan because of the attention and resources that were diverted to Iraq. “I basically don’t,” he replied without elaborating.
I guess a follow-up question would have been too much to ask for from Pool Boy and his sidekick?
After apparently not asking such an obvious question, after getting stiffed on their more general question about Cheney and Bush’s diversion of resources to the Iraq War (I don’t suppose Pool Boy and friend have been watching the Iraq Inquiry in the UK, either, and I’m quite certain it’d be too much for them to ask about Cheney’s personal role fucking up our Pakistan policy in more recent years), they then serve as stenographers for yet another Cheney attack on Obama.
Somehow, VandeHei and Allen managed amazing feats of hunting mastery last week, but they couldn’t manage to ask glaringly obvious questions before then turning around and writing down every little thing Cheney told them to say.
And here’s another question.
It is just a remarkable coincidence that the day after John Harris invented this complaint,
Politicians of both parties have embraced the idea that this country — because of its power and/or the hand of Providence — should be a singular force in the world. It would be hugely unwelcome for Obama if the perception took root that he is comfortable with a relative decline in U.S. influence or position in the world.
On this score, the reviews of Obama’s recent Asia trip were harsh.
His peculiar bow to the emperor of Japan was symbolic. But his lots-of-velvet, not-much-iron approach to China had substantive implications.
On the left, the budding storyline is that Obama has retreated from human rights in the name of cynical realism. On the right, it is that he is more interested in being President of the World than President of the United States, a critique that will be heard more in December as he stops in Oslo to pick up his Nobel Prize and then in Copenhagen for an international summit on curbing greenhouse gases.
Cheney voiced precisely that complaint?
During the campaign, Cheney recalled, he saw Obama as “sort of a mainline, traditional Democrat — liberal, from the liberal wing of the party.” But Cheney said he is increasingly persuaded by the notion that Obama “doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism — the idea that the United States is a special nation, that we are the greatest, freest nation mankind has ever known.”
“When I see the way he operates, I am increasingly convinced that he’s not as committed to or as wedded to that concept as most of the presidents I’ve known, Republican or Democrat,” he said. “I am worried. And I find as I get out around the country, a lot of other people are worried, too.”
What a remarkable coinkydink, that the Pool Boy’s editor is the only other person in the country worried about Obama and exceptionalism.
Is Cheney getting “out around the country”? I haven’t seen him anywhere close to the northeast — not even western Pennsylvania or Ohio.
American exceptionalism: I thought this meant “American Exemptionism” — the exemption the US enjoys, in the ‘minds’ of Dick Cheney his ilk, from any and all international or human standards of conduct, including international law and even the constitutional law of the United States itself.
Good one, I like your neologism.
‘Cuz I see Obama’s embrace of exceptionalism as a very bad thing. It’s the central pillar of the myths with which we jack nations to war.
The type of exceptionalism I’m talking about isn’t simple pride. It’s this:
In short: “our wars are the only holy holy wars, because god loves us the most.” That’s the type of AmEx Cheney is goading Obama to embrace, and it’s working only too well.
AmEx is a very powerful propaganda weapon, driven by the power of myth.
Cheney is selecting his venues very carefully. Friendly crowds, no questions (generally no reporters), high security, minimal pre-announcements. I’d bet that Politico had to agree to a set of ground rules that specifically excluded such questions.
When I was a kid, the papers took particular joy in publishing any ground rules about an interview. I remember one interview showing up on the OpEd page, while the editorial discussed the questions they WOULD have asked and speculated why they weren’t allowed to ask ’em.
Boxturtle (I thought politico had spine. Wrong again)
Wow, that is a great idea.
I think the only followup question a pool boy ever asks is “Can I get you another drink?” five minutes after bringing the last one.
Or so I’ve been told by the people with actual pool boy experience.
Absolutely remarkable!
The name of the book was, after all, “Hubris“…
“We Hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal”
Boxturtle (But white, christian Americans are more equal than everybody else)
Actually, it’s White, Christian, Republic Americans that are more equal than everybody else.
I’m pretty sure they’ve got that backwards — Obama is in Copenhagen first, then in Oslo.
His career is in ruins, his party a thing of the past. How can he rescue his reputation? He runs to the press, the last refuge of a scoundrel (to be confused, of course, with “patriotism”)….
OT
(sort of) Cheney is mentioned in this.
skdadl, I know you enjoy son-of-klynn insights. Here’s one from daughter-of-klynn. It’s a keeper.
BTW, EW what does Cheney have in his possession to get this kind of media?
Well, let me offer a slight contrast to Cheney’s failure to focus on apprehending a criminal: I live in ‘Greater Pugetopolis’ and as anyone with access to news knows, we had an individual here who shot and murdered four police officers in cold blood.
I’ve just checked my local metro news site, and this cold-blooded murderer is now dead.
Let me put it this way: I have more respect and trust for my local law enforcement agencies than I will ever have in Richard Cheney.
Here, they had a suspect.
They didn’t stop their search.
The suspect was observed this a.m. showing extremely suspicious, dangerous behavior.
The suspect is now dead.
I don’t even want to imagine how Dick Cheney would have managed a situation like this one. Or how VandeHei and Allen would have reported it.
Just a comment of deeply felt gratitude for local law enforcement officers. And I mean ‘gratitude’ for people who come to the aid of those who have been harmed, or endangered.
Dick Cheney isn’t good enough to shine their shoes.
And neither are VandeHei, nor Allen.
marcy, the point has been made before, not by me but much appreciated, (possibly you?), isn’t it interesting all this “afghanistan” stuff is comming out right when obama wants to continue the never ending war in afghanistan?
one really has to think about it, all this “bush/cheney let bin get away” has been around a a really long time
One wonders if there was a $35 to 70 billion price tag to put those now-aged facts into the Senate record…
35,000 troops X 2.0 multiplier for support personnel X $500K per year — and this does not include the cost of equipment since much of what some may think can be redeployed from Iraq is too abused for this purpose and must be replaced.
Yeah. We’re still watching a shake-down in progress. Wonder how much more $$ it’s going to cost to get all the facts into Congressional record?
This stuff is leaking on Afghanistan somebody wants to derail the troop build up in Afghanistan I thought it might be Rahm cause he leaks everything but maybe there is another player in the game?
Obama if he does not get a tax increase to fund the troops could cancel the troop build up and then blame the GOP.
That would be real 13 dimensional chess though.
An unflinching belief in the myth of American exceptionalism is the foundation of the right wing’s view of the world and America’s role — and its unilateral right to do whatever we please to whomever we please. Cheney is simply the most malevolent practitioner of that view who ever seized the presidency, and the mindless pool boys are not smart enough to question the myth or the myth makers or critically examine the catastrophes this view has brought to others and ourselves.
I strongly disagree.
Dick Cheney believes in the exceptionalism of a few great corporations–his clients who live on fiefdoms in South Texas and run big gas and construction companies.
There is little tie between their notion of exceptionalism and that most Americans believe in. Their notion of exceptionalism is about maintaining power, irrespective of laws of morals.
OT, but since you mention fiefdoms, haven’t we heard on and off of some of that set setting themselves up in Dubai? And now Dubai is looking, well, kaput.
Isn’t this a spiffy piece of copy? from Halliburton’s web site:
Think they moved in 2007.
Speaking of which, I really should get my hands on a copy of “Economic Hitman” John Perkin’s latest book.
Perkins’ “Hoodwinked” is really, really good.
I’m in Chapter 4, and so far can report it is definitely worth the hard-cover price if you have the change clanking around.
He has a remarkable gift for synthesis, and narrative.
As for skdadl@22, one of the Financial Times (or NYT) articles quoted someone at WINEP in an article on Dubai. That seemed extremely weird. Since then, I’ve seen references to ‘Iranian money’ + Dubai.
So what all that means, I got no clue.
But you might want to keep an eye out.
Yeah, me too.
Ah, but the corporate side finds it very convenient to perpetuate the global policy side. All you need do is add cynicism and greed to the hubris. I don’t see why you think they’re incompatible — in fact, if the corporate world did not see the militarism as profitable and the empire protection as necessary to sustain the access to global markets, it would shut it down.
Your perspective and emptywheel’s aren’t incompatible.
As John Edwards said, there’s two Americas.
There’s the uber-rich, uber-powerful global-trotters who are American by default but control the world’s wealth.
And then there’s the America they use like toilet tissue to achieve their ends. They support the hype of American exceptionalism in the media they own and control, in order to obtain the support of the masses.
But the real exceptionalism is their existence beyond the reach of the law and the people.
Have not heard much about the “two America’s” since Edwards fucked what ever her name is, his supporters and ultimately himself.
Not much about Vets sleeping under “bridges” either
Sometimes personal implosions seem awfully convenient, especially for the exceptional.
* adjusting the tinfoil chapeau *
Wait a minute.
If you work for a multinational, you put the corporation’s needs above your national identity. You’re used to thinking about demographics that have less to do with national borders than they have to do with birth dates, or literacy data.
In that respect, it’s my sense that working in a multinational gave Cheney a view of a nation-state and it’s laws as ‘enablers’ of corporate powers and currency rates. As far as America is convenient to Cheney, it seems to be convenient in the same sense that mines of ores are convenient; it’s just a resource to be depleted in the service of corporate profits.
But otherwise, the concept of America as a series of functioning communities, or as places where families hand down hard-earned farms or businesses to their children, appears to be absent in Cheney’s view. In his mind, ‘America’ is probably a collection of agencies, mineral deposits, resource lands, and budgets.
And Cheney seems to prefer black budgets to any other kind.
I had an eye-opening conversation with an Asian foreign national not quite 10 years ago, when I wasn’t politically active and relatively naive about power in the political sense.
They worked for an Asian subsidiary of a transnational corporation for which we both worked; the subsidiary was operated and run out of that location because it needed to be an Asian firm — must look like, run like, speak like an Asian business in order to be a going-concern, only linked to the parent based in America by name and finance. This person was on a temporary assignment here on a green-card, they expected to go back to the Asian subsidiary.
I asked about the attitude of the community and state towards this subsidiary as a foreign firm; they straightened me out and told me there was no perception at all that this was anything but an American firm, even if incorporated there, even if set up and staffed by locals. They worked for an American firm, period — and that was both a good thing and a bad thing.
There’s a heckuva lot of transnational firms we U.S. citizens believe to be foreign — we’re the only ones who think that.
I agree that Cheney perpetuates the myth of American exceptionalism.
But my point is that there has been a clear separation in recent years between what even a widely defined AMerican exceptionalist interest would be and what Dick has been doing. Thta doesn’t get reported, but it’s there.
This seems to be his concept of ‘America’.
I doubt he can get his head around the idea that anyone would go to Harvard and then become a community organizer. His complete inability to see the strides that Obama is making is kind of morbidly fascinating, and reveals a whole lot more about Dick Cheney than it will ever reveal about Barak Obama.
and using cherry picked and “inconclusive” intelligence to maintain and expand that power
My guess is, someone is poised to launch an attack on our country should Obama not send many troops in order to say, “See, if he sent troops we would be safer.”
Sending humanitarian aid seems to be the win-win.
Sigh, my tin foil is on a bit tight.
“arguing that the intelligence was inconclusive about the Al Qaeda leader’s location.”
“inconclusive” intelligence never stopped them before. Wonder why they started being concerned about the validity of their intelligence then?
That intelligence must have not come from the Office of Special plans, Office of Net Assessments or WHIG.
Hubris Pride of Being Greater than the Gods!
Darth uses exceptionalism as an exception to violate rules and laws like war crimes and no bid contracts for companies he used to run.
Exceptionalism should be built on trying to do good and putting others first.
The sidekick cracks me up on the Morning Right-Winger show, where some Politico hack (usually Allen) is there. Last week, he was rhapsodizing about some hunting trip he Pool Boy took. I never could tell if they were joking or it was real, but just the thought of those 2 in the woods, hunting deer, cracked me up. How stupid must one be to believe their story? Because even if they DID go hunting, their story was totally unbelievable. Yeah! They were out a mere few hours and the 2 novices came back with giant deer. Those who might be impressed with such stupidity will see through them in a second, and those who wouldn’t be impressed will also think they are stupid. So — who wins?
VanderHei & Allen are just fronting for the boss: Frederick J. Ryan Jr., former Assistant to President Ronald Reagan,[2] and currently chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation, is president and CEO of Politico. (from Wikipedia)
Love that independent journalism.
The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com
Release of the torture report is said to be “imminent.”
By withholdering this longer does this help with protecting more folks via the statute of limitations
It also gives us something to do rather than to simply sit and stew over this ridiculous 35,000 troop increase in Afghanistan.
The DC crowd’s shenanigans really have boosted the use of time-foil headgear, huh?
While I don’t agree with the OBama administrations increasing more troops based on what my friend Haroon in Afghanistan has said about additional troops not being the answer. Now this is not just his response but his retired Brigadier General father, Afghani PhD candidate studying at O.U., Ambassador Eikenberry, Andrew Bacevich etc etc.
But during the campaign Obama never hid the fact that he thinks the war in Afghanistan was both necessary and the war to fight I am not surprised at all by his decision. Just hope he is inclusive of the thoughts of wise folks like Haroon, his father, Bacevich etc in his equation.
Don’t you all remember when Bush I announced that the Berlin Wall had fallen and that the Cold War was over? He was all but breaking down and sobbing.
These people need their “opponents” more than they need us.
Perpetual war requires perpetual enemies.
it has been obvious since the 2008 campaign, just where politico is coming from; even with the adoration they get from the likes of chris matthews and others. one need only read the comments to know just whom they are writing for. they are hoping to knock of drugde.
I can never see Van de Hei’s name without immediately thinking of this blast from our collective past and Monk classic
VandeHei and Allen are whores.
Mark Pittman, a real journalist, and who died last week
said when asked how his cops background helps his journalism
“You end up with a big BS detector as a cops reporter because the cops
lie to you, the victims lie to you, the people helping the victims lie to you. And you’ve got to sort through, and there will be a a story that seems a certain way, and it just won’t be — and you know it. That’s what this is about.”
EW is about as close to a premier BS detector that I’ve seen…
Has it ever occured to you that Cheney Inc. may have had more incentive not to capture or kill bin Laden?
After all, had it not been for bin Laden and 9/11, BushWorld would never have gotten the green light to invade Iraq, create the Patriot act, shred the Constitution, and generate the fear needed to bolster the DOD and the intelligence agencies to the tune of hundreds and hundreds of billions of additional dollars. 9/11 has been enormorusly profitable for those on Wall Street fully invested in the military industrial complex.
Is that a bit too cynical for you? Am I crossing the line?
Maybe.
But what do you really know about the forces behind American foreign policy.
Do me a favor. Google the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Investigate them thouroughly. Note the names, the corporations, the media moguls that make up the rosters. Start connecting the fucking dots and then tell me what you think goes on behind the curtains in Wshington and New York.
You are not being too cynical or crossing the line. The now documented fact that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc., allowed Bin Laden and his men to fight only against Afghan soldiers, to leave Tora Bora unmolested, without simply calling in for US reinforcements is amazing. This is the man we have been told is responsible for 9/11. There would have been thousands of US soldiers very eager to fight and even die to capture or kill Bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Why the administration allowed al-Qaeda to escape I don’t know. I would be speculating on a reason. But it is now clear they did.
According to Scott Horton, Dick Cheney was conned by the Pakistanis.
“Judy Miller Club for Cheney Stenographers”
I love it! That was so funny, I laughed out laughed from my desk @ work!
BTW, good to read blogs like this instead of the nasty Obama-sniping that’s been taking over FDL recently …
I saw some of Cheney’s remarks on msnbc this morning. He is trying to take control of and introduce the words “defer” and “radical”.
He is trying to remove the sting of the word “defer” from “five deferment Cheney”.
And he is moving the word “radical” into main stream use with respect to our President. This was so obvious that it seemed like a go signal for those who think Obama = radical Islamist = the enemy of xtiandom = it is okay to Dr. Tiller him.
Gee, so Mr. 19% gets 90 minutes of unfettered fluffing from 2 stenographers. I didn’t read the link (can’t bear to give Politico a hit) but did they ever even touch upon the fact that newly released grand jury testimony documents from the Plame affair reveal that Cheney freakin sold his bff Scooter Libby down the river in his own grand jury testimony to Fitzgerald to save his own arse. I’m guessing that’d be a big fat no?….probably afraid they might get shot in the face like his other friend.
Politico is nothing but another propaganda arm of the VRWC. That was the purpose of its creation, and these two mouthpieces – not, please, journalists or reporters – are merely tools. Politico is no more independent or objective than is FOX. It is a big mistake to view the output of Politico as anything other than strategic positioning of whatever message and agenda the VRWC is pushing.
Who is this John harris person? He sure seems in need of something to give him a sense of worth. What a pitiful scum.
American exceptionalism is such an interesting notion, something akin to mass delusion, where one believes something that is rejected by others and has no basis in fact. It is certainly useful for those not in the grip of the delusion as it is an easy thing to exploit.
I guess an equally interesting question is just how many people in this country are in the gripp of this mass delusion.
If Obama actually gets this country – or even its elites – past the notion of “American exceptionalism”, he will have done the country a very great service.
That notion has done enormous harm to us and to the rest of the world.
May Cheney disappear once again, and permanently, to a truly-undisclosed, without-communicaiton-devices, location. And soon.
Ooh, can I ask a non-substantive question? Where does the “pool boy” reference come from? I must have missed that one.
And if it isn’t too late – Rayne, was that you with an email question on NPR’s Talk of the Nation yesterday? It kinda sounded like something you’d ask, and I wondered.
From his CIA Leak investigation coverage, while still at the WaPo.
Jane coined the name.
No, sorry, wasn’t me on TotN…but what would I have asked? ;-)
Suppose you had a 90 minute interview with dick cheney…” is a nice intro,
But that’s not the question that oc urs first to me.
That question is:
” why pick politico for your important self-protecting interview whose purpose is to misdirect attention from ctitically bad command decisions you have made.”
Put differently,
Which many reporters and news outlets would Cheney never have agreed to be interviewed by for 2 minutes on the issue of bin laden’s escape?
By the way,
The astonishingly incurious and compliant reporting that pool boy and john “we have nothing but our integrity” Harris engaged in has a name.
That name is “Woodward wapoop journalism”.
It’s central tenent is:
“Let the powerful speak to me and i will write down whatever they say.
And my newspaper will print it uncritically, as I reported it uncritically.”
Pool boy and john Harris had lots of time to learn this variant of
Journalism I
Their tenure at wapoop, where harris rose, inexplicably, to be national editor of political news.
P.s.
Still I wonder if good old fashioned payola might not have been involved in politicos waltz with Cheney.
in a poll of 1300 repuglitarded people
30% said that there is NO LEADER of the repuglitarded party
18% picked princess pandora as the person who most represents repuglitarded values
ONE FUCKING PERSON SAID THAT DICK CHENEY REPRESENTED REPUGLITARDED VALUES
in a collection of the ignorant and willfully stupid, dead eye dick has ONE FUCKING FOLLOWER
heck of a job, dick