What keeps the Cheney dynasty propelling forward is its relationship with the media. For all the contempt expressed by Dick Cheney over the years at the press, his post-vice presidential career has demonstrated that he knows very well how to manipulate it. He gives interviews to those who have no interest in challenging him like Politico and the Sunday shows, where theatrics can overcome even the occasional alert or tenacious questioner. Those news-venues won’t “take greater pause before trotting out the former vice president,” because what they’re doing is working for them.And given the fact that Karl Rove, John McCain, and now Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay are still allowed to peddle their version of the facts, I don't expect that the Cheneys will find themselves black listed anytime soon.
So you’d have to change the game up. You’d have to make Fred Hiatt have to constantly answer for hiring Marc Thiessen and you’d have to put the Washington bureaus of the TV networks in a position where their self-regard as professionals is, publicly, at issue. And you’d have to do it in a way that avoids those malefactors preening that their uncritical embrace of intellectual dishonesty is a sign of integrity — after all, aren’t they brave to give a voice to the other side in the debate that the braying left wants to shut down, etc. The Cheneys only matter as much as the media allow them to matter.
Why would anyone expect anything different?
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