In an August 11 online discussion at washingtonpost.com, Washington Post staff writer Jonathan Weisman -- when asked why Vice President Dick Cheney “saying basically that people who exercised their constitutional right to vote for change (ie: Conn. primary) are helping terrorists” was “not the headline of a story” -- responded: “The vice president also said the insurgency in Iraq is in its death throes, and that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators. I'm afraid to say his utterances are losing their news value.” Therefore, according to Weisman's reasoning, the vice president of the United States -- reputedly the most powerful vice president in history -- can get away with saying false and outrageous things, as long as he says them often enough.

The reader was likely referring to Cheney's August 9 conference call with reporters, in which he responded to Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont's victory over Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in the Connecticut primary. Cheney said:

The thing that's partly disturbing about it is the fact that, the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the Al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task. And when we see the Democratic Party reject one of its own, a man they selected to be their vice presidential nominee just a few short years ago, it would seem to say a lot about the state the party is in today if that's becoming the dominant view of the Democratic Party, the basic, fundamental notion that somehow we can retreat behind our oceans and not be actively engaged in this conflict and be safe here at home, which clearly we know we won't -- we can't be. So we have to be actively engaged not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but on a global basis if we're going to succeed in prevailing in this long-term conflict.

So it's an unfortunate development, I think, from the standpoint of the Democratic Party to see a man like Lieberman pushed aside because of his willingness to support an aggressive posture in terms of our national security strategy.

Weisman's dismissal of Cheney's comments echoes the broader media coverage of the Bush administration's falsehoods and manipulation of intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq war. As Media Matters for America documented, as more and more evidence of distortions and misleading claims have surfaced, the media have responded with a collective shrug, explaining that the public was already aware that the Bush administration had repeatedly made false statements about Iraq, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and it was therefore old news. And notwithstanding the media's assertions about what public knows, recent polling indicated that the share of Americans who believed Saddam Hussein possessed WMD at the time of the U.S. invasion increased 14 percent from 2005 to 2006.

From the August 11 "Post Politics Hour" online discussion:

Medford, Mass.: Exactly how is it that our sitting Vice President can get away with saying basically that people who exercised their constitutional right to vote for change (ie: Conn. primary) are helping terrorists? How is this not the headline of a story, instead of a footnote?

Jonathan Weisman: The vice president also said the insurgency in Iraq is in its death throes, and that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators. I'm afraid to say his utterances are losing their news value.