Flatine & Lowry - February 17, 2006
JIM LEHRER: And to Flatline and Lowry: Fake Democracy founder Johnny Flatline and National Review editor Rich Lowry. David Brooks is off tonight. Johnny, and so after a week, is the Cheney story over?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Well, according to FOX it‘s over. They have put countless numbers of paid off pundits on the screen, insisting the story is dead. Talk about working hard at wishing something away, they are doing it. And that alone should be cause for suspicion.
JIM LEHRER: Rich, what's your view about whether or not the vice president mishandled this? I mean, forget the accident itself but the uproar that ensued afterward over the handling, is there some fault there?
RICH LOWRY: Yeah. I think they clearly should have gotten it out as soon as possible on Saturday night. But there were extenuating circumstances. They're down there in the boondocks, Cheney has no staff. My understanding is that he was understandably crushed and shaken by the incident. So they wait to do it Sunday, and they're also thinking if they had just put out a statement Saturday night "Oh, by the way, Cheney shot someone and we don't know his condition but we're just letting you know" there would have been a firestorm anyway. And if they had released any information prematurely that was incorrect, they also would have gotten hammered for that.
JIM LEHRER: What do you think about that, Johnny?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Well, I grew up in the Texas hunting business. The whole state is covered up in important people on hunting trips. This was not Siberia. Look, we are dancing around the obvious here. Any good prosecutor would tell you Cheney had to be stinking drunk. The responses are too telling. I mean, wife beaters leave trails this good. He refuses any public appearance for a over a day? Law enforcement is delayed. One thing I’ve learned in my own Texas hunting experience, is rich guys on hunting trips like to drink. In this case, Cheney probably drank irresponsibly. People may not realize that he has a colorful drinking past like Bush. I think Cheney was drunk, and his victim might have been drunk as well. And shooting somebody while drunk is a felony in Texas, which is why Cheney has been so secretive on this. On top of that, he was hunting without a proper hunting license. Us little people get fined for that sort of thing. But watch him get every possible benefit of the doubt by his fans. Since I view him as a war criminal and traitor to the United States, I’m not so willing to give him such benefit of my doubt. He’s a liar, I know he is, so I don’t believe a word he says on this.
RICH LOWRY: but in terms of news value it ended today when Whittington came out and looked pretty hearty and gave an incredibly gracious statement. If he had done that three days ago, been in a condition to do that three days ago, everything would have been different. And also his turn for the worse bollixed the White house plan for dealing with this.
JIM LEHRER: The heart problem on Monday.
RICH LOWRY: Right. Because initially they're going to have - my understanding - they're going to have the president make a lighthearted remark about it Tuesday, figure that takes care of the Tuesday news cycle; do something with Cheney Wednesday or Thursday, and I'm not sure what, and then have this Wyoming event Friday. But when he has the heart condition, you can't joke about it anymore, and it kind of blew up that initial plan.
JIM LEHRER: Peggy Noonan, a conservative columnist, a former speechwriter for the first President Bush, had a piece in the Wall Street Journal I think yesterday, an op-ed page piece where she said this could, in fact, lead to Vice President Cheney stepping down and the president picking a successor who would be in great shape to be the 2008 Republican nominee. Does that make sense to you?
RICH LOWRY: No, no, and I think there's zero chance of that, especially the way it played out later on in the week here where I think the vice president put it behind him. Also, you know, Vice President Cheney is not responsible for the president's political problems. He could be the most popular vice president we've ever seen in this country and he'd still be in the low 40 percent approval. The vice president's standing just doesn't matter that much. Plus, selecting a presumptive 2008 nominee would be extremely controversial and divisive in the party. That's why I think it's very unlikely that would happen.
JIM LEHRER: What do you think, Johnny?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Oh, sure. Attaching your future political career to the most defective administration in American history is just brilliant. I wonder how many will just lunge at the chance? If things continue like this, I can assure you, the next President will not be Republican. Oh, wait. I forgot that our elections are rigged. So maybe we will be getting Republican presidents forever.
RICH LOWRY: And also, ironically, just given the polarized poisonous nature of our politics, the fact is that he's a hate magnet, as Peggy Noonan put it, makes him more popular with the Republicans and makes him more valuable in terms of reaching out to the Republican base.
JIM LEHRER: What kind of marks would you give the press over the handling of this incident, particularly the White House press corps, they were the people in the front lines, so to speak, on this?
RICH LOWRY: I think it was absurd overreaction. And, as I said, I think Cheney's office should have gotten it out sooner but a 14- or 18-hour delay in the scheme of things over this kind of incident I think is meaningless.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: He probably was drunk, he probably broke the law, and he needed 18 hours to sober up. My God, wake up you patsies. I fault the White House press core for not going for the obvious here. Think about it. You are Cheney, which means you are higher than God. You screw up big time in friendly territory. Judgement is clouded and panicked. What do all dishonest powerful people do when they screw up? They cover up. They hide. They delay. They have trouble getting their stories straight. Communication among their troops gets clouded. It’s right there beating you over the head, yet you just can’t help but play along with their little charade.
JIM LEHRER: Oh, you don’t buy that?
RICH LOWRY: Exactly. I still think it's an absurd overreaction but it's the reason that there was the overreaction.
JIM LEHRER: Now, staying on Cheney here there's been word this week of the possibility, at least, that the vice president has some direct involvement in the Plame/Libby situation. How do you read that?
RICH LOWRY: Well, I think it's mostly what we've been talking about and hearing about. Well, one, the vice president did accrue more power to his office in this executive order a couple of years ago where the president says the vice president, too, has power to classify and also my understanding is to declassify material. And apparently he used that to allow Scooter Libby to talk to reporters about the national intelligence estimate about Iraq's WMD programs. And this is being, I think, conflated with the Plame matter and being spun into some scandal. I just don't think it is because that national intelligence estimate ended up being declassified itself and released to the press and a lot of the people who have been complaining about Cheney's secretiveness and all the rest of it this week I'm sure are the same people that wanted to see the basis for the war being released and declassified at that time.
JIM LEHRER: Do you have a view on this, Johnny?
Johnny Flatline: I do.
JIM LEHRER: Share it with us.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: The Bush family has been known to punish those who cross them. This is an arrogant family. And Cheney’s ability to lie about the obvious, is more stubborn than Bush. I think Cheney to this day, won’t admit that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. This guy has absolutely no regard to honesty with the public. He’s a dictator of the first degree. And if he and Bush are telling bold faced lies about WMD’s, it would not surprise me that they would turn a spy who was ruining their lie. They took pretty harsh action against Mary Mapes who was instrumental in both Abu Graib news releases, as well as Bush’s little AWOL incident. These guys take no prisoners. They are brutal, vicious, and evil.
JIM LEHRER: Okay. Finally, Katrina, this has been the week of Katrina on the Hill, both the House and Senate have had hearings. How has Michael Chertoff, the secretary of housing -- of Homeland Security, handled this, do you think, Johnny?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Incompetent. What else do you want me to say? The Bush administration does not look for talent when they hire. They work by cronyism. Bush is a crony himself. He certainly didn’t get his job based on ability, so why should we expect him to hire others any differently. He has lived in a world of insider favors, and that’s his thought process. He’s an elitist ignoramus, a child of spoiled privilege. All of these guys don’t have a clue how to do their jobs. We don’t need another hearing to convince anybody of that. This is just a finger pointing session to make Congress feel better about itself. We are living in the Republican dream. They dominate every branch of government, so life is supposed to be perfect. Competence is supposed to be high. Everything should be getting better. So I’m very confused as to why we are now pointing to incompetence. How can that be possible if the Republicans are in control of everything? Who is going to be responsible for these failures?
JIM LEHRER: Rich?
RICH LOWRY: It's classic government failure. The whole thing was a government failure and part of it has to do with the nature of the Department of Homeland Security, which is just a monstrosity with these 22 separate organizations thrown in there without a lot of thought by either party in Congress or apparently the President of the United States. So I have a little sympathy for Michael Chertoff and trying to manage this unmanageable thing.
But it came down in the end of the day to leadership and something is stuck in my mind that Michael Brown said last week during his hearings. If this had been a terrorist attack in New Orleans, he said, it would have been all different. And I think there's something to that because it was a classic case of fighting the last war where that was what the federal government was really primed to respond to and they didn't have the same level of awareness and initiative in the word of that report that came out this week when it was a natural disaster.
JIM LEHRER: Did you hear anything from Chertoff this week in response to the criticism that makes you think he can fix this?
RICH LOWRY: You know, he's going to try. It sounds like he has the right ideas. He's basically still trying to make this department cohere; and one thing he talked about this week is, you know, making every one of those 22 separate entities that has some operational capacity, sort of melding them and making them work together. But it's a huge task.
JIM LEHRER: You have got 22 seconds, Johnny.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: I will paraphrase Jerry Springer, who said, ‘if that Superdome had been filled with thousands of white high school cheer leaders, our government would have had every helicopter known to man out there getting them out instantly. We all know why that didn’t happen here.
JIM LEHRER: Thank you both very much.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Well, according to FOX it‘s over. They have put countless numbers of paid off pundits on the screen, insisting the story is dead. Talk about working hard at wishing something away, they are doing it. And that alone should be cause for suspicion.
JIM LEHRER: Rich, what's your view about whether or not the vice president mishandled this? I mean, forget the accident itself but the uproar that ensued afterward over the handling, is there some fault there?
RICH LOWRY: Yeah. I think they clearly should have gotten it out as soon as possible on Saturday night. But there were extenuating circumstances. They're down there in the boondocks, Cheney has no staff. My understanding is that he was understandably crushed and shaken by the incident. So they wait to do it Sunday, and they're also thinking if they had just put out a statement Saturday night "Oh, by the way, Cheney shot someone and we don't know his condition but we're just letting you know" there would have been a firestorm anyway. And if they had released any information prematurely that was incorrect, they also would have gotten hammered for that.
JIM LEHRER: What do you think about that, Johnny?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Well, I grew up in the Texas hunting business. The whole state is covered up in important people on hunting trips. This was not Siberia. Look, we are dancing around the obvious here. Any good prosecutor would tell you Cheney had to be stinking drunk. The responses are too telling. I mean, wife beaters leave trails this good. He refuses any public appearance for a over a day? Law enforcement is delayed. One thing I’ve learned in my own Texas hunting experience, is rich guys on hunting trips like to drink. In this case, Cheney probably drank irresponsibly. People may not realize that he has a colorful drinking past like Bush. I think Cheney was drunk, and his victim might have been drunk as well. And shooting somebody while drunk is a felony in Texas, which is why Cheney has been so secretive on this. On top of that, he was hunting without a proper hunting license. Us little people get fined for that sort of thing. But watch him get every possible benefit of the doubt by his fans. Since I view him as a war criminal and traitor to the United States, I’m not so willing to give him such benefit of my doubt. He’s a liar, I know he is, so I don’t believe a word he says on this.
RICH LOWRY: but in terms of news value it ended today when Whittington came out and looked pretty hearty and gave an incredibly gracious statement. If he had done that three days ago, been in a condition to do that three days ago, everything would have been different. And also his turn for the worse bollixed the White house plan for dealing with this.
JIM LEHRER: The heart problem on Monday.
RICH LOWRY: Right. Because initially they're going to have - my understanding - they're going to have the president make a lighthearted remark about it Tuesday, figure that takes care of the Tuesday news cycle; do something with Cheney Wednesday or Thursday, and I'm not sure what, and then have this Wyoming event Friday. But when he has the heart condition, you can't joke about it anymore, and it kind of blew up that initial plan.
JIM LEHRER: Peggy Noonan, a conservative columnist, a former speechwriter for the first President Bush, had a piece in the Wall Street Journal I think yesterday, an op-ed page piece where she said this could, in fact, lead to Vice President Cheney stepping down and the president picking a successor who would be in great shape to be the 2008 Republican nominee. Does that make sense to you?
RICH LOWRY: No, no, and I think there's zero chance of that, especially the way it played out later on in the week here where I think the vice president put it behind him. Also, you know, Vice President Cheney is not responsible for the president's political problems. He could be the most popular vice president we've ever seen in this country and he'd still be in the low 40 percent approval. The vice president's standing just doesn't matter that much. Plus, selecting a presumptive 2008 nominee would be extremely controversial and divisive in the party. That's why I think it's very unlikely that would happen.
JIM LEHRER: What do you think, Johnny?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Oh, sure. Attaching your future political career to the most defective administration in American history is just brilliant. I wonder how many will just lunge at the chance? If things continue like this, I can assure you, the next President will not be Republican. Oh, wait. I forgot that our elections are rigged. So maybe we will be getting Republican presidents forever.
RICH LOWRY: And also, ironically, just given the polarized poisonous nature of our politics, the fact is that he's a hate magnet, as Peggy Noonan put it, makes him more popular with the Republicans and makes him more valuable in terms of reaching out to the Republican base.
JIM LEHRER: What kind of marks would you give the press over the handling of this incident, particularly the White House press corps, they were the people in the front lines, so to speak, on this?
RICH LOWRY: I think it was absurd overreaction. And, as I said, I think Cheney's office should have gotten it out sooner but a 14- or 18-hour delay in the scheme of things over this kind of incident I think is meaningless.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: He probably was drunk, he probably broke the law, and he needed 18 hours to sober up. My God, wake up you patsies. I fault the White House press core for not going for the obvious here. Think about it. You are Cheney, which means you are higher than God. You screw up big time in friendly territory. Judgement is clouded and panicked. What do all dishonest powerful people do when they screw up? They cover up. They hide. They delay. They have trouble getting their stories straight. Communication among their troops gets clouded. It’s right there beating you over the head, yet you just can’t help but play along with their little charade.
JIM LEHRER: Oh, you don’t buy that?
RICH LOWRY: Exactly. I still think it's an absurd overreaction but it's the reason that there was the overreaction.
JIM LEHRER: Now, staying on Cheney here there's been word this week of the possibility, at least, that the vice president has some direct involvement in the Plame/Libby situation. How do you read that?
RICH LOWRY: Well, I think it's mostly what we've been talking about and hearing about. Well, one, the vice president did accrue more power to his office in this executive order a couple of years ago where the president says the vice president, too, has power to classify and also my understanding is to declassify material. And apparently he used that to allow Scooter Libby to talk to reporters about the national intelligence estimate about Iraq's WMD programs. And this is being, I think, conflated with the Plame matter and being spun into some scandal. I just don't think it is because that national intelligence estimate ended up being declassified itself and released to the press and a lot of the people who have been complaining about Cheney's secretiveness and all the rest of it this week I'm sure are the same people that wanted to see the basis for the war being released and declassified at that time.
JIM LEHRER: Do you have a view on this, Johnny?
Johnny Flatline: I do.
JIM LEHRER: Share it with us.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: The Bush family has been known to punish those who cross them. This is an arrogant family. And Cheney’s ability to lie about the obvious, is more stubborn than Bush. I think Cheney to this day, won’t admit that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. This guy has absolutely no regard to honesty with the public. He’s a dictator of the first degree. And if he and Bush are telling bold faced lies about WMD’s, it would not surprise me that they would turn a spy who was ruining their lie. They took pretty harsh action against Mary Mapes who was instrumental in both Abu Graib news releases, as well as Bush’s little AWOL incident. These guys take no prisoners. They are brutal, vicious, and evil.
JIM LEHRER: Okay. Finally, Katrina, this has been the week of Katrina on the Hill, both the House and Senate have had hearings. How has Michael Chertoff, the secretary of housing -- of Homeland Security, handled this, do you think, Johnny?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Incompetent. What else do you want me to say? The Bush administration does not look for talent when they hire. They work by cronyism. Bush is a crony himself. He certainly didn’t get his job based on ability, so why should we expect him to hire others any differently. He has lived in a world of insider favors, and that’s his thought process. He’s an elitist ignoramus, a child of spoiled privilege. All of these guys don’t have a clue how to do their jobs. We don’t need another hearing to convince anybody of that. This is just a finger pointing session to make Congress feel better about itself. We are living in the Republican dream. They dominate every branch of government, so life is supposed to be perfect. Competence is supposed to be high. Everything should be getting better. So I’m very confused as to why we are now pointing to incompetence. How can that be possible if the Republicans are in control of everything? Who is going to be responsible for these failures?
JIM LEHRER: Rich?
RICH LOWRY: It's classic government failure. The whole thing was a government failure and part of it has to do with the nature of the Department of Homeland Security, which is just a monstrosity with these 22 separate organizations thrown in there without a lot of thought by either party in Congress or apparently the President of the United States. So I have a little sympathy for Michael Chertoff and trying to manage this unmanageable thing.
But it came down in the end of the day to leadership and something is stuck in my mind that Michael Brown said last week during his hearings. If this had been a terrorist attack in New Orleans, he said, it would have been all different. And I think there's something to that because it was a classic case of fighting the last war where that was what the federal government was really primed to respond to and they didn't have the same level of awareness and initiative in the word of that report that came out this week when it was a natural disaster.
JIM LEHRER: Did you hear anything from Chertoff this week in response to the criticism that makes you think he can fix this?
RICH LOWRY: You know, he's going to try. It sounds like he has the right ideas. He's basically still trying to make this department cohere; and one thing he talked about this week is, you know, making every one of those 22 separate entities that has some operational capacity, sort of melding them and making them work together. But it's a huge task.
JIM LEHRER: You have got 22 seconds, Johnny.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: I will paraphrase Jerry Springer, who said, ‘if that Superdome had been filled with thousands of white high school cheer leaders, our government would have had every helicopter known to man out there getting them out instantly. We all know why that didn’t happen here.
JIM LEHRER: Thank you both very much.
posted by Johnny Flatline at 7:18 PM
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