| Tuesday, June 14, 2005 |
22:21 - Down in front
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050613-104823-1601r.htm
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I saw part of this Dick Cheney's press conference yesterday morning when I was dropping off my car at Bob Lewis; it was being shown on the big TV in the waiting room, which was tuned to CNN. (Apparently it was only one brief period of the day when the coverage was not devoted exclusively to Michael Jackson, whom I would thank to please recuse himself from the public spotlight for a while so we can move on to the next celebrity scandal or tabloidy human-interest murder case to demand weeks on end of attention.)
Cheney explained, defensively, that the people being held in Gitmo are in fact terrorists—the real deal, the "20th hijacker" kinds of people—and that even so there was a definite process in place to determine whether each one posed specific threats to the United States or should be released. He then began to cite examples; he started by telling the story of one who had been picked up on the battlefields of Afghanistan, who had after seven months in Gitmo been determined not to be a threat to America's security, and was released to Afghanistan with a new Koran and several extra pounds around the waistline. Five months later, US forces killed him in a skirmish with Taliban forces in the mountains near Kandahar—because this released prisoner had immediately joined right back up with them and become the Taliban's regional commander.
Cheney began to recite the story of a second prisoner whose humane treatment and early release would seem to be unwarranted; but CNN chose that moment to cut away, and the anchor started talking over it, saying "Vice President Dick Cheney has been defending the conduct of guards at Guantanamo Bay, where interrogation practices have been criticized recently as "torture"; politicians on both sides of the aisle have called for Gitmo to be shut down." And then they cut away to more Michael Jackson crap.
Don't let the man talk, or anything. Don't let him make his case to the American people. Just shut off his microphone and remind us all that what he's defending is TORTURE CRITICIZED GITMO SHUT DOWN KORAN FLUSH URINE AAHHH! And then jump off in another direction before anyone has time to process what they've just seen. In the name of all that's secular, don't let the last impression in people's minds be what Cheney said.
I would wager that Cheney is more hated among the general public here and abroad than even Bush; nobody knows anything about Cheney except that he's a big grimacing evil bald corporate vulture, whereas at least Bush has a dumb innocent vacant look on his face. Why, just put up their pictures next to each other—you know who's running the show! —And yet if anybody actually listened to what either man says, in speech after speech, particularly off the cuff, so many of these preconceptions would just dissolve.
Not that CNN is about to let us make up our own minds or anything.
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Brian Tiemann
