Blitzer vs. Cheney

by Ed Kociela
Jan. 29, 2007

Dick Cheney looked like he was about to have a stroke.

Or, maybe, invite Wolf Blitzer to go quail hunting in Texas.

Or, maybe, ratchet up his tough-guy image a few notches in case he ends up in the slammer with Scooter Libby.

It was an unbelievable performance by the president of vice when he sat across from Blitzer the other day on CNN.

"They aren't gonna stop us," he snapped at Blitzer when it was suggested that the new Senate is not too happy with the president's decision to up the ante in Iraq by 20,000 or so new troops.

Cheney was definitely in a foul mood.

"So?" he said with a kind of dull thud, kind of like a blackjack applied to the back of the neck, when Blitzer asked him about comments by John McCain that the president had been "badly served" by Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

Then his eyes took the sharp glint of a cobra about to strike when Cheney told Blitzer that a question about his lesbian daughter being pregnant was "out of line."

Sorry, nothing is out of line when it comes to interviewing an elected official.

Especially a question about family values asked of a man who has built his conservative appeal around nihilistic military aggression and a set of family values that were outdated back when Ozzie and Harriet were on the television screen.

And to go after Blitzer, of all people.

This is a guy who is about as far away from being an attack-dog interviewer as there is. He's always done his homework, always asks a decent question and always strikes a professional pose. But he doesn't ambush his subject from behind a tree.

And this wasn't a setup like when Chris Wallace tried to slam Bill Clinton.

I can understand Cheney's discomfort to a certain degree. I mean, if my boss were the president and his approval rating dipped to that of Richard Nixon's one week before he resigned, I guess I'd be a little hot under the collar, too.

Especially if a guy like McCain, the new guy who seems to have the president's ear, was saying nasty things about me.

The thing to remember here, for better or worse, is that Blitzer, or any other reporter, is supposed to be a watchdog for the public. He and his brethren are supposed to ask tough questions, demand transparency from elected officials and ensure the public trust is not violated.

Which means that it is relevant to ask if the daughter of the assistant commander in chief is living up to the standards Cheney and his cadre of neocon, religious-right supporters expect from the rest of us.

I'd like to see what would happen if Cheney told Sam Donaldson he was "out of line."