MIXED MESSAGES

[desdemona]

Being Dick Cheney

[2 June 2004]

by David Sirota

There are moments in the life of every politician when the public gets an unfiltered glimpse of the person behind the platitudes. For the first President Bush, it was cameras catching his wonderment at a supermarket scanner. For Mike Dukakis, it was his bobble head impression in the tank. And for Bill Clinton, it was his pained effort to define what "is" is.

But we are rarely treated to the morsels Vice President Dick Cheney recently served up. By the time he had finished a trio of public statements, Cheney confirmed our worst fears that he has become totally divorced from reality.

First, Cheney held up Fox News Channel as the pinnacle of objective reporting. Despite the brazen sensationalism and hard-right tilt that have made Fox the laughingstock of American journalism, Cheney last month told thousands of Republican Party loyalists that he "ends up spending a lot of time watching Fox News, because they're more accurate" than any other media outlet. Of course, just last year, a University of Maryland study found that Fox may well be the most inaccurate news organization in America. The study found, among other things, that 80% of Fox viewers held at least one major factual misperception about the war in Iraq — a far higher rate than viewers of any other network.

A few weeks later, Cheney cited Wal-Mart as "one of our nation's best companies" (Whitehouse website, May 2004), ignoring its poverty-level wages, mistreatment of workers, and repeated violations of environmental law. He claimed the company "exemplifies some of the very best qualities in our country — hard work, the spirit of enterprise, fair dealing and integrity." He failed to mention the 60 federal complaints against the company for workplace violations, Wal-Mart's decisions to lock workers into stores, and charges that it doctored hourly employees' time records in order to skimp on wages. Instead, he parroted the Wal-Mart executives who are bankrolling the Bush-Cheney campaign, calling for "litigation reform" and saying the problem afflicting America is pesky workers who have the nerve to challenge corporate malfeasance in court.

Finally, amidst increasing US casualties and international uproar over prisoner abuse in Iraq, Cheney said "Donald Rumsfeld is the best Secretary of Defense the United States has ever had." (CNN.com, 9 May, 2004) The statement effectively endorsed Rumsfeld's failure to plan for post-war Iraq and dishonest statements about Iraq's (still non-existent) WMD arsenal. It also undermined Bush Administration apologies for the Abu Ghraib situation by giving a public vote of confidence to the same Defense Secretary who supported the brutal interrogation tactics.

As shocking as these declarations are, they are really no surprise in the context of Cheney's past public statements. For instance, early this year, Cheney cited a document previously discredited by the Bush Pentagon as the "best source" of information about a Saddam-Al Qaeda link (none have ever been proven). And Cheney continues to trumpet his former oil company Halliburton as a beacon of corporate ethics, even as the company bilks taxpayers and mistreats US troops in Iraq. (CBSNews.com, 12 December 2003 and Truthout.org 12 March 2004)

But while these out-of-touch comments evoke jokes about spending too much time in a secure undisclosed location, they also illustrate something far more serious: the man who in one instant could be president has lost all touch with reality. His judgment is so severely impaired that he relies on Fox for facts, Wal-Mart for economics, Halliburton for ethics, and Don Rumsfeld for security. Cheney's psychological profile has become suspiciously similar to your "crazy Uncle Ned" — a man you don't want anywhere near your family. And yet, just one heartbeat separates Uncle Ned from all of our families.

read the entire article here:

http://www.popmatters.com/columns/sirota/040602.shtml

[Ken]

And there isn't a damn thing anyone can do about it until November.

[DudeAsInCool]

I'd rather hear two sides of an issue from Kerry than any message whatseover from Dick Cheney - that man doesnt live on the same planet as I do

[NullsRevenge]

I'd rather hear two sides of an issue from Kerry

The great thing about that is Kerry probably has supported both sides at one time or another even if those differences are pretty big...

Anyways this is a opinion piece geared towards people who already believe pretty much everything he said anyways, however i would have liked it better if it kept it more about issues and how to make things better and less on the person and less preachy.

[DudeAsInCool]

i would have liked it better if it kept it more about issues and how to make things better and less on the person and less preachy.

I agree, although there isnt alot of good thinks I could say about Cheney if I wanted to - that would be a tough assignment for a reporter ;)

[slum_goddess]

i would have liked it better if it kept it more about issues and how to make things better and less on the person and less preachy.

the entire point of the article was summed up in the title and the second 'graph. hey i would've liked it better if it veered off and got into an objective evaluation of our fearless preznit's mental capacities but it din't. i also would've liked it better if it had some juicy gossip a la cheney's perv sexual past but it dint. when i don't agree w/the point of an article (from the title or the intro summary), if i'm not forced to write about it...guess what? i don't read it.

i think a lot of what's wrong is that reporters are still cowed and afraid to challenge whatever. i'd have liked it better if it told of some reporter standing up to cheney on e.g., the walmart issue (which is huge--i read 'nickel and dimed in amerika' and the situation sucks royally).

[Ken]

The person is the issue.

Cheney is the Vice President of the U.S.

His views will reflect what he does in office, in one form or another.

So if he's a drooling retard off on cloud nine, that's big trouble for the U.S. as a whole.

I'm not a Democrat or a liberal, or a shuffle board player from the north pole, but if you honestly think Cheney isn't at least a little bit crazy, maybe you're on cloud nine as well.

[slum_goddess]

what i never could understand is how people so willingly embraced fox news (when it seemed to me so obvious how distorted it is). then i remembered what i learnt in psychology class: the average IQ in the US is 100 and that explains everything to me. (i'd laugh if it weren't so sad.)

[Ken]

You see, Fox News makes itself popular by appearing to be bias and leaning toward a certain political "side".

In fact, this is only to bait in the drooling retards, wherever they may own a television set.

For a bullshit news channel, I bet they make lots of dinero.

[NullsRevenge]

The person is the issue.

Personally i care more about what is being done rather than the mindset behind it because at the end of the day what actually gets done is what counts and what effects people, not always personal beliefs.

What i dont like seeing is people who dont like whats currently being done to solve a problem but yet dont have any alternatives at all. I would like people to say what they would do better rather than critize all the time. Because critizing is a very easy thing to do.

[DudeAsInCool]

I would like people to say what they would do better rather than critize all the time. Because critizing is a very easy thing to do.

I would like a Vice President who opens minutes on his Energy meetings; I would like a VP who doesnt use Fox News as his gospel; I would like a VP who is even handed on the environment, who is pro-business, but isnt tied so tied to corporations like Haliburton that his ethics are above reproach.

[slum_goddess]

I would like people to say what they would do better rather than critize all the time. Because critizing is a very easy thing to do.

yep, it sure is easy to criticise. not having the time to list the hundreds of things that've occurred to me since nov 2000, i'd like to know what has to happen for the 'war on terror' to be won and i'd love to ask cheney myself.