More Mangling of Cheney's Terror Comments -- September 9, 2004 -- TimesWatch.org

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Times Watch for September 9, 2004

More Mangling of Cheney's Terror Comments

Adam Nagourney turns a misreading of comments made Tuesday by Dick Cheney on the terror war into a fretful article, "When Explosive Charge Isn't Handled With Care."

His entire Thursday piece is based on a minced Cheney quote about differing approaches of Bush and Kerry regarding the war on terror: "Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that the nation was more likely to 'get hit again' by terrorists if John Kerry was elected was one of the toughest attacks launched in a presidential election in 40 years. But Mr. Cheney's latest assault on Mr. Kerry, which startled Democrats and Republicans alike, raised a central question even in this notably ferocious presidential campaign: Is it possible for a candidate to go too far, and alienate the very voters he is trying to court? In one sign that the answer to that question may be yes, Mr. Cheney's aides were quick to say that he had not meant to be quite so direct in his remarks in Des Moines on Tuesday when he said: 'The danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating.' A review of the videotape of his appearance in Des Moines suggests that his remark was spontaneous and unscripted. There was some, though not much, cringing in Republican circles at the image of Mr. Cheney on television, characteristically unsmiling, describing a Kerry presidency in such apocalyptic terms."

Here's an unclipped version of what the vice president said, which provides necessary context to Nagourney's image of Darth Cheney: "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 mindset 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."

From that excerpt, it's clear to Times Watch that Cheney was not arguing that a Kerry win would by definition lead to a terror attack--but that if a terror attack happened under his watch, then Kerry's response could represent a "fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set" of treating terror attacks as merely criminal acts, not acts of war.

But Nagourney runs with the misleading, truncated version to condemn Cheney for harshness: "Still, Mr. Cheney's harsh presentation of that argument in Des Moines may well have crossed that line, analysts said, and created potential perils for the White House….The remarks were among the more dire offered in a presidential campaign since 1964, when Lyndon B. Johnson broadcast a television advertisement, with a mushroom cloud, warning that the election of Barry Goldwater would lead to nuclear war. It was hard to find anyone in Mr. Kerry's headquarters who thought that Mr. Cheney's remark was not deliberate. 'A sitting vice president does not make a comment like that without knowing the implications of it,' said Stephanie Cutter, Mr. Kerry's communications director."

After stating that Cheney's remark was unscripted, Nagourney then lets Democrats engage in wishful thinking and speculate the remarks were actually part of some grand Bush strategy. Naguorney again suggests polls showing Bush with a clear lead are exaggerated: "There was no shortage of speculation among Democrats about why Mr. Cheney was being so harsh. Could post-convention White House polls now be finding that the 11-point Bush lead reported by Time and Newsweek had indeed been exaggerated, leaving Mr. Bush without the upper hand he had hoped for? [Editor's note: The respected Gallup Poll has Bush up 52%-45%, and a new CBS poll also has Bush up by seven.] Could the White House be trying to shift attention away from new reports this week about Mr. Bush's absences in the National Guard? Perhaps. But it seems safe to say that even if Mr. Cheney did not mean to say it the way he did, this was precisely the message he intended to convey. It is one that voters will be hearing again and again before Election Day."

For the rest of Nagourney's misleading piece, click here.

Taking Anti-Bush Charge Seriously
After Dismissing Swifties With Contempt

Katharine Seelye and Ralph Blumenthal's front-page story on the new brouhaha over Bush's Vietnam service treats the story seriously: "President Bush's Vietnam-era service in the National Guard came under renewed scrutiny on Wednesday as newfound documents emerged from his squadron commander's file that suggested favorable treatment."

That's quite a change from how the Times treated allegations from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who questioned Kerry's Vietnam record only to be ignored for months by the Times, before the paper finally issued a hostile piece that ignored the substance of the Swifties' allegations in favor of playing connect-the-Republican-dots.

Seelye and Blumenthal add in Thursday's story: "Anticipating his remarks, Republicans worked to discredit [Bush accuser and former Texas Lt. Gov. Bob] Barnes as a partisan Democrat and large contributor to Mr. Kerry. The events created a new round of scrutiny for Mr. Bush, after a month in which Mr. Kerry's Vietnam service dominated the campaign because of veterans with longstanding anger at how Mr. Kerry, who was a decorated veteran, came home and turned against the war. With advertisements, through a book and on talk shows, the group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, leveled largely unsubstantiated accusations about Mr. Kerry's record and told how his antiwar statements had demoralized veterans."

That's rather nervy on the part of the Times: While Barnes's comments are not considered "unsubstantiated" (though he apparently has no supporting evidence), charges made by the 200+ Swift Boat vets against Kerry are once again given that journalistic epithet.

For the rest of Seelye and Blumenthal's respectful treatment of allegations over Bush's Vietnam service, click here.

Marking 1,000 Deaths in Iraq With an Ethnic Angle

Monica Davey marks the 1,000th death of a U.S. service member in Iraq on the front page of the Times in "For 1,000 Troops, There Is No Going Home." But the tribute is cheapened with racial bean-counting: "But along with so much personal loss, the roster of the dead tells a larger story, a portrait of a society and a military in transition, with ever-widening roles and costs for the country's part-time soldiers, women and Hispanics."

Later in the long expose (obviously in the works in anticipation of the 1000th fatality in Iraq) Davey returns to the theme: "Many Hispanics, once underrepresented in the armed forces, have fought and died in striking numbers. At least 122 Hispanics have died in Iraq, meaning that they died at a rate disproportionately high for their representation in the active forces and among the deployed troops."

That sounds like a tragic variation on Mort Sahl's Cold-War era joke about the Times headline after nuclear Armageddon: "World Ends, Women & Minorities Hardest Hit."

For the rest of Davey on the 1000th death in Iraq, click here.

• Monica Davey | Fatalities | Iraq War

Taking Cheney Far Out of Context, Again

The Times again takes mangles Dick Cheney's war-on-terror remarks in a Thursday editorial, "A Disgraceful Campaign Speech."

The Times huffs: "We'd have thought that both the Kerry and Bush camps would instinctively know that it would be appalling to suggest that terrorists were rooting for one side or another in this race. But Vice President Dick Cheney seemed to breach that unspoken barrier this week in Des Moines. If John Kerry was elected president, Mr. Cheney warned the crowd, 'the danger is that we'll get hit again.' In a long, rather rambling statement, he said the United States might then fall back into a 'pre-9/11 mind-set' that 'these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts.' At the very best, Mr. Cheney was speaking loosely and carelessly about the area in this campaign that deserves the most careful and serious discussion. It sounds to us more likely that he stepped across a line that the Bush campaign team had flirted with throughout its convention, telling his audience that re-electing the president would be the only way to stay safe from another attack."

Then the Times does exactly what they accuse Cheney of doing: "There is a danger that we'll be hit again no matter who is elected president this November, as President Bush himself has said on many occasions. The danger might be a bit less if the current administration had chosen to spend less on tax cuts for the wealthy and more on protecting our ports, securing nuclear materials in Russia and establishing an enforceable immigration policy that would keep better track of people who enter the country from abroad."

Strangely enough, it's columnist Maureen Dowd who, having apparently learned her lesson about distorting quotes, actually provides the full Cheney quote, though she makes the same argument the editorial page does: "As the deaths of American men and women fighting in Iraq topped 1,000, and with insurgents controlling parts of central Iraq, the White House trotted out the same old discredited line, assuming it can wear--and scare--everyone down by November."

For the full editorial on Cheney, click here.

Not-So-Straight Shooters at the Times

The assault weapons ban--popular or not? Sheryl Gay Stolberg can't seem to decide in her Thursday A1 piece, "Effort to Renew Weapons Ban Falters on Hill."

First she frets the bill seems to be headed for failure despite being popular: "Despite widespread popular support, the federal law banning the sale of 19 kinds of semiautomatic assault weapons is almost certain to expire on Monday, the result of intense lobbying by the National Rifle Association and the complicated election-year politics of Washington. While President Bush has expressed support for legislation extending the ban and has said he would sign it into law, he has not pressured lawmakers to act, leading critics to accuse him of trying to have it both ways."

Immediately afterward, however, Stolberg hints the ban might not be so popular after all: "Efforts to renew the ban, which polls show is supported by at least two-thirds of Americans, have faltered this year on Capitol Hill. Democrats are well aware that they lost control of the House of Representatives in 1994, the year President Bill Clinton signed the original legislation, and have shied away from the issue of gun control, while Republican leaders have opposed the ban."

She gives time to emotional stories from supporters of the ban: "Tom Mauser, whose 15-year-old son, Daniel, was killed in the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, arrived wearing his son's sneakers and took them off while addressing reporters, a pointed physical reminder of his loss."

Yet the "assault weapons" ban had already been in place five years at the time of the Columbine massacre.

For those opposing the ban, Stolberg provides supportive figures: "A poll released this week by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania found that 68 percent of Americans--and 32 percent of N.R.A. members--support renewing the ban. The findings, drawn from interviews with 4,959 adults, had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus one percentage point."

But then she provides evidence the ban is actually a political loser: "And over the years the ban has been a losing issue for Democrats. After Republicans took control of the House in 1994, President Clinton remarked that the ban might have cost Democrats 20 seats. Some believe that former Vice President Al Gore lost crucial states, including his home state, Tennessee, in the 2000 election because he came out too strongly for gun control."

For the rest of Stolberg on the popular-yet-maybe-not ban on assault weapons, click here.

• Assault Weapons | George W. Bush | Gun Control | Sheryl Gay Stolberg

E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org