Softball questions abound in Time's interview with Cheney

Time magazine's October 18 interview with Vice President Dick Cheney, conducted by White House correspondents Mike Allen and James Carney, was marked by softball questions and almost no follow-ups to Cheney's various false claims. In fact, the number of questions Allen and Carney posed to the vice president about hunting equaled the number they asked about Iran and North Korea -- three for each topic.

Allen and Carney set the tenor for the interview with their first two questions:

TIME: Mr. Vice President, we really appreciate your making this time in a very busy season. You've had a very energetic, aggressive campaign schedule. I was interested in how it's different campaigning for House and Senate members, as opposed to campaigning for yourself. And when we were out the other day in Kansas and Louisiana, we noticed you didn't have the grandchildren. That was a little change from 2004.

[...]

TIME: Goodness [responding to Cheney's saying he has been involved in 114 campaigns]. And do you miss your grandchildren?

Allen and Carney then asked: "What do you think a Democratic House would be like? What do you think a Democratic Senate would be like?" Cheney dismissed the idea that Democrats would gain control of one or both houses of Congress in the upcoming elections but went on to attack Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) -- who would likely chair the House Ways and Means Committee if Democrats took control -- claiming that Rangel "has announced that he doesn't think a single one of the Bush tax cuts ought to be extended," and "if Charlie Rangel were to be Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, he would put at risk -- because of his beliefs; he just fundamentally disagrees with those tax policies -- he would put at risk some of the best economic policy this nation has seen in a long time."

Allen and Carney failed to challenge Cheney's comments by noting that Rangel has said that one of the Democrats' top priorities would be to reform the alternative minimum tax so that it affects fewer middle class Americans. According to a September 20 Bloomberg news article: "As a priority, he [Rangel] said Republicans and Democrats need to work together to address the expanding reach of the alternative minimum tax, a parallel system designed to prevent the richest from avoiding taxes that increasingly ensnares middle-income households." Allen and Carney also failed to note that Rangel has said: "We don't bring anything back. We would not raise taxes. We would not roll back."

Instead, Allen and Carney asked the following:

• "[H]ow badly do you think the Mark Foley scandal has hurt your Republicans [sic] candidates, House and the Senate?"

• "How do you think -- or how would you like -- history to judge this presidency or this administration?"

• "How has your role in this White House evolved over the past six, seven years? How have your assignments changed?"

• "Mr. Vice President, do you feel like you're less visible or more visible internally than you were when you all started on January 20, 2001?"

• "You and the President, this administration seems -- based on public opinion polls -- seem not to get the credit it deserves, certainly you probably feel that way, for the economy. Why is that? Is it the gas prices? Is it the housing bust? Is it Iraq?

• "Mr. Vice President, if we could turn to Iraq. How long do you think it will be before the average American sees going to Iraq as a good idea?"

• "Mr. Vice President, do you think that in your lifetime going to Iraq will be seen as visionary -- widely seen as visionary?"

In response to that last question, Cheney said, in part:

CHENEY: The hundreds of thousands of men in Afghanistan and Iraq who signed on for the security forces to fight on our side, in effect, against the evil ones; the overall attitude of the millions of people in Afghanistan and Iraq who have gone to the polls and risked their own lives in order to vote and participate in a newly created democracies, and suddenly the United States says, well, gee, it's too tough in Iraq, we're going home -- you cannot separate out Iraq from that broader global war on terror. [Osama] Bin Laden has made the point repeatedly that Iraq is now the central front in the war on terror.

Cheney's response did prompt a challenge from Allen and Carney: "But hasn't he [bin Laden] made that point because we're there? If we weren't there, would he be making that point?" Cheney, however, simply brushed their follow-up aside, saying: "The fact of the matter is we are there, and it is the central struggle at this point." He then went on to attack Democrats, who favor withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, saying: "For us to do what the Democrats -- some Democrats -- have suggested in Iraq would simply validate that strategy, would simply say to al Qaeda, you're right. And all it would do is encourage more of the same." Allen and Carney failed to push back on Cheney's attack on Democrats by noting that several Republicans have raised concerns about the administration's stated "stay the course" strategy in Iraq, among them Sen. John Warner (VA), Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME), and James A. Baker III, former Secretary of State under President George H.W. Bush, as Media Matters for America has noted.

Allen and Carney did follow up again, however, asking: "Isn't what's happening in Iraq, though, not about al Qaeda principally, but about sectarian war and civil war, the potential for civil war? Aren't we on the verge in Iraq of occupying a country that's being torn apart in a civil dispute, a civil war?" Again, however, Cheney brushed aside their question, responding: "There's no question what [sic] there is sectarian violence now, but remember how we got to sectarian violence: al Qaeda. That was their strategy to launch attacks against the Shi'as, to kill Shi'as until they could generate some kind of a response."

Allen and Carney later asked Cheney about the Iraq Study Group (ISG), a bipartisan commission -- headed by Baker and 9-11 Commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton -- assigned by Congress to "make a forward-looking, independent assessment of the current and prospective situation on the ground in Iraq and how that affects the surrounding region as well as U.S. interests." Allen and Carney asked Cheney what he "want[s] from Secretary James Baker's Iraq Study Group," and about "talk in Washington that this [will provide the administration] ... an exit strategy after the election." Cheney responded, in part:

CHENEY: I know what the President thinks. I know what I think. And we're not looking for an exit strategy; we're looking for victory. And victory will be the day when the Iraqis solve their political problems and are up and running with respect to their own government, and when they're able to provide for their own security. And how we get to that objective is what we need to keep in mind.

Our strategy hasn't changed. Our tactics change from time to time, and they have to adapt and adjust. And we're eager to have thoughts and ideas from experienced people in terms of how we can move forward in having the Baker-Hamilton group go put fresh eyes on the problem and take a look at it. We think it's a valuable exercise. We'll see what they produce.

Allen and Carney did not mention news reports at the time that indicated that the ISG had concluded that the administration's strategy was not working. For example, the Los Angeles Times reported on October 16:

A commission backed by President Bush that is exploring U.S. options in Iraq intends to propose significant changes in the administration's strategy by early next year, members say.

Two options under consideration would represent reversals of U.S. policy: withdrawing American troops in phases, and bringing neighboring Iran and Syria into a joint effort to stop the fighting.

While it weighs alternatives, the 10-member commission headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III has agreed on one principle.

"It's not going to be 'stay the course,' " one participant said. "The bottom line is, [current U.S. policy] isn't working. ... There's got to be another way."

Instead, Allen and Carney asked Cheney: "Mr. Vice President, if you had to take back any one thing you'd said about Iraq, what would it be?" Cheney, presumably referring to his June 20, 2005, statement that the Iraq insurgency was "in the last throes," said:

CHENEY: I thought that the elections that we went through in '05 would have had a bigger impact on the level of violence than they have, I guess, I'd put it in those terms. I would have thought -- well, I expressed the sentiment some time ago that I thought we were over the hump in terms of violence, I think that was premature. I thought the elections would have created that environment. And it hasn't happened yet.

Allen and Carney failed to note that as recently as September 10, Cheney defended the "last throes" assertion. On NBC's Meet the Press, Cheney said: "I also think when we look back on this period of time 10 years from now -- and this is the context in which I made that statement last year -- that 2005 will have been the turning point. Because that's the point at which the Iraqis stepped up and established their own political process, wrote a constitution, held three national elections, and basically took on the responsibility for their own fate and their future."

Allen and Carney also asked Cheney about North Korea's recent nuclear weapons test, and what the United States would do if United Nations-imposed sanctions on North Korea failed to have their desired effect. Cheney left open the suggestion that military action was a viable option, saying: "As the President said, we haven't taken any options of [sic] the table." Allen and Carney might have asked what, if any, military options are available to the United States, given the fact that the U.S. military is already stretched thin by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as Media Matters has noted.

Allen and Carney ended the interview with the following:

• "Mr. Vice President, do you believe that we'll have a confrontation with Iran before you leave office?"

• "And may we ask two questions about the future? Mr. Vice President, do you plan to hunt again?"

• "Why not run for President? You're younger than [Sen.] John McCain [R-AZ]. You look okay."

• "Seriously, I mean is it -- there's nobody who could convince you, you should? Certainly, there are people in the party would like to see it."

• "Mr. Vice President, do you imagine going back to the corporate world or what do you think you and Mrs. Cheney will do after you leave office?"

• "Do you think you and Mrs. Cheney will live in the D.C. area or the Eastern Shore or Wyoming?"

• "Do you imagine being visible, having a public role, or do you think you will be quieter?"

• "Question to you on the hunting question. Do you know if Harry Whittington [the man Cheney accidentally shot while hunting in February] would hunt with you again?"

• "But you said you're going to go again. Why do you feel confident that you will, and do you think you'll do it before you leave office?"