I'VE LOST FAITH

I don't take the kind of comprehensive notes on campaign coverage that I do on war coverage, so I can tell you that I believe that both ABC and CBS reported last night that Vice President Cheney made an inflammatory remark yesterday about the implications of electing Sen. Kerry president but I can't be positive. I believe it was both networks because that was the interpretation the Kerry campaign put on the remark when they responded to it.

But even as I heard it, I thought, that just makes no sense to me. It's too politically intemperate: even if you believe that the Bush campaign believes voting in Kerry/Edwards would increase the chance that we'd be hit by another terrorist attack, they're savvy enough to suggest it, not come right out and say it. In short, I heard the story, but I just didn't believe it -- and it wasn't the Kerry campaign I was suspicious of. I just kept thinking of the last column from the Post's ombud.

Well, turns out I was right. It doesn't look that was Cheney's argument at all. I don't mean to go off topic with campaign blogging here, but to me this one isn't about the campaign. It's about the fundamental question: if we don't, or can't, at least assume the basic facts of the stories we hear are true, what's left? If the press doesn't have our basic faith, what have they got?

Update: Imus just played the full quote. No question Patterico is right.

Update: Slaves to the wires! The truncated, incorrect quote was used three times in twenty minutes on the Today Show: in the opening tease, in a question posted to Madeline Albright, appearing as an advisor to the Kerry campaign (lets talks softball), and in a question from Matt Lauer to Tim Russert, asking, "can he get away with that?"

That conversation was truly disturbing, because Russert said, after Lauer asked if the comment didn't cross a line, if there's a terrorist attack before the election, what does the Vice President say then? There's just no question that the interpretation is now ensconsed thoroughly: the Veep pronounced that the only way to stave off a terrorist attack was to vote Republican.

Comments

[kalroy]

I thought he was right. Listening to it this morning on the news his point was (RD condensed) that you could choose a 9/12 administration or a 9/10 administration.

Kalroy

[Media Hound]

As soon as I heard this story, I knew it was more
"mainstream" media shilling for Kerry.

The first thing I did was look for a transcript.

Here is Cheney's full quote:

We made decisions at the end of World War II, at the beginning of the Cold War, when we set up the Department of Defense, and the CIA, and we created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and undertook a bunch of major policy steps that then were in place for the next 40 years, that were key to our ultimate success in the Cold War, that were supported by Democrat and Republican alike -- Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower and Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon and Gerry Ford and a whole bunch of Presidents, from both parties, supported those policies over a long period of time. We're now at that point where we're making that kind of decision for the next 30 or 40 years, and it's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice. Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again. That we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us.

We have to understand it is a war. It's different than anything we've ever fought before. But they mean to do everything they can to destroy our way of life. They don't agree with our view of the world. They've got an extremist view in terms of their religion. They have no concept or tolerance for religious freedom. They don't believe women ought to have any rights. They've got a fundamentally different view of the world, and they will slaughter -- as they demonstrated on 9/11 -- anybody who stands in their way. So we've got to get it right. We've got to succeed here. We've got to prevail. And that's what is at stake in this election.

Town Hall Meeting
Embassy Suites Hotel
Des Moines, Iowa
September 7, 2004

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040907-8.html

[Kevin Murphy]

To answer your question, the press doesn't have my basic faith, they have my contempt.

[Thief]

Oh, THAT fracking liberal media....

[Felix]

Wow. That's pretty amazing. And it's the AP again, eh?

Thanks for picking that up, Cori.