{"id":1390,"date":"2007-06-29T19:36:28","date_gmt":"2007-06-30T00:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2007\/06\/29\/the-sounds-of-silence\/"},"modified":"2007-06-29T19:51:21","modified_gmt":"2007-06-30T00:51:21","slug":"the-sounds-of-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2007\/06\/29\/the-sounds-of-silence\/","title":{"rendered":"sounds of silence…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lonely Dick<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n

The following item was written by Matthew Blake, a Nation magazine intern:<\/em><\/p>\n

This past week The Washington Post<\/em> ran a four-part, as much-depth-as-you-can-take series on Vice President Dick Cheney. It unflinchingly documents Cheney’s unprecedented power and secrecy. His wide-ranging influence stretches from encouraging the use of torture during interrogations of suspected terrorists to orchestrating a massive fish-kill in Oregon.<\/p>\n

The articles so thoroughly reinforces the image of Cheney as a dark, ruthless powerbroker that the question is not "How awful is this guy?" but, "Who can now defend him?" While Cheney has earned a reputation for dismissing public opinion, he has long enjoyed support from conservative and neoconservative pundits and advocates. Surely, then, some of his ideological pals must have come to his rescue… <\/p>\n

First, I turned to Fox News, but its Web site contained nary a word on the Cheney series. No acknowledgment of its existence–and no counterattack. Next, I visited The Wall Street Journal<\/em> and The Washington Times<\/em>. Nada. The Web sites of these centers of conservative opinion were letting their champion in the White House dangle in the wind…<\/p>\n

The crusading neocons of The Weekly Standard<\/em>, I figured, must be firing back. After all, Cheney helped bring about the war in Iraq they had craved for years. And a Weekly<\/em> writer, Stephen Hayes, has been working on a positive Cheney bio. The Standard<\/em> could set the world straight on the real<\/em> Dick Cheney. But its Web site, updated daily with conservative opinions from both staff writers and the blogosphere, offered nothing on Cheney.<\/p>\n

Could it be that conservatives were cutting-and-running on their great torchbearer. I performed a Lexis-Nexis search for every article with "Dick Cheney" from newspapers, wires and blogs for the days the series ran. Once again, there was no one defending Cheney…<\/p>\n

… I had overlooked a key source. I hadn’t checked the National Review.<\/em> With 50 years of principled conservative commentary, NR<\/em> would not be intimidated by a report loaded with named sources in the liberal media… On the magazine’s Web site, Jonah Goldberg had posted a column with the courageous title, "Confessions of a Cheney Fan." … But in ensuing paragraphs, Goldberg betrays his love and tosses Cheney overboard. "It becomes clear," he wrote, "that the Cheney method leaves a lot to be desired." Goldberg concluded that Cheney’s shadowy, uncompromising approach to government is "ultimately counterproductive."<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He’s right! I hadn’t really noticed. There’s been silence from the Talking Point Press<\/em><\/strong>. I even searched the Rush Limbaugh site and found nothing [I’ll admit to not listening to him to see if he said anything on the air]. Same with Bill O’Reilly. I would interpret this peculiar silence as a possible plan – "don’t dignify the Washington Post’s series by even mentioning it" [meaning: not everyone reads the Washington Post so don’t call attention to it]. Even if it is a strategy to keep the faithful away from the series, it’s still odd that there’s nothing there – absolutely nothing. It’s deafening…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lonely Dick The following item was written by Matthew Blake, a Nation magazine intern: This past week The Washington Post ran a four-part, as much-depth-as-you-can-take series on Vice President Dick Cheney. It unflinchingly documents Cheney’s unprecedented power and secrecy. His wide-ranging influence stretches from encouraging the use of torture during interrogations of suspected terrorists to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}