A rchive Date
[ 09-08-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[Dick Cheney hits a journalistic ambush
By R. CORT KIRKWOOD-- Ottawa Sun
August 6, 2000
Now that Dubya's official and finished passing the usual convention gas about low taxes and social uplift, it's time for an observation about what the media tried to do to his running mate.
About one minute after Junior selected him, GOP vice-presidential candidate Dick Cheney was "defending his record." The Associated Press moved that story, and he landed in the hot seat, for example, on at least one of the morning talk shows, whose cerebral hosts can discuss anything from the dark situation in Kosovo to Martha Stewart's latest collection of bed sheets with relative ease.
The media's reaction to Cheney's appointment leaves several questions to be answered, first among them why Cheney had to "defend" anything.
A former congressman from Wyoming and factotum for presidents Ford and Bush, Cheney is hardly a controversial man. His views certainly don't carry the same kick as Pat Buchanan's barrel of ideological whiskey. He is a reliable GOP vote and voice, a perfectly good navy blue suit.
Hostile tone
For that, he found himself the subject of inquiry normally reserved for guys like Buchanan. In a hostile tone, the media took Cheney to task for voting against the Equal Rights Amendment, a failed and silly attempt to conscript the U.S. Constitution to serve feminist ideology, and his votes against abortion and gun control in Congress.
For the liberals, who argue that infanticide, in the form of partial-birth abortion, is protected by law, opposing abortion is a capital sin. As for guns, the liberals believe the only persons who should be allowed to have them are trustworthy government officials such as Bill Clinton and cops who beat the living daylights out of powerless minorities.
So that's why Cheney had to "defend" himself, although one is left to wonder who decided his record needed "defending." Who was the first person who cast Cheney's past in a light that sounded almost evil? Simply choosing the word "defend" implies something is morally wrong with his voting "record," which there is for many of those covering Cheney.
For the liberal news media, Bush's "compassionate conservatism" (whatever that is) is about as much conservatism as they can stand. And voting against gun control and abortion is about an uncompassionate as you can get.
Well, inasmuch as vice-presidential nominees must "defend" their records, one might ask the next question: Will Gore's running mate be "defending" his voting record in Congress, the Senate or a statehouse? Will Prince Albert's man - or woman - have to "defend" a vote or position against impeaching Bill Clinton, or for partial birth abortion, or for gun control? Don't count on it.
The major media, you see, hopes beyond hope for the man who inspired Love Story. So its members were ready with a script to paint the GOP vice-presidential nominee as someone with "extreme" views on the controversial hot button issues, which wouldn't work against Bush. Oddly, the news media also depicted Cheney as a "safe" and sensible choice, which raises the question of why someone who is "safe" needs "defending."
The media tacked a similar course when it launched a salvo of anti-death penalty articles just before Texas was about to execute murderer Gary Graham. As a writer for the on-line magazine Slate observed, the news media, led by the New York Times, wanted to embarrass Bush by suggesting he would allow Texas to execute an innocent man.
In fact, Graham was a vicious, racist, stone-cold killer.
The news media is supposed to play an important role in elections. But it isn't supposed to do what it did to Cheney, meaning castigate him for having opinions and taking positions unacceptable in most newsrooms.
We await Gore's choice, who won't be expected to "defend his record."
Kirkwood writes on U.S. affairs for the Sun. Letters to the editor should be sent to oped@sunpub.com.
 World Fact Book (CIA))]
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