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September 08, 2004 Cheney, selective editing, and selective outrage... Dick Cheney... Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday warned Americans about voting for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, saying that if the nation makes the wrong choice on Election Day it faces the threat of another terrorist attack.John Edwards responded immediately, saying... “Dick Cheney's scare tactics crossed the line today, showing once again that he and George Bush will do anything and say anything to save their jobs. Protecting America from vicious terrorists is not a Democratic or Republican issue, it's an American issue and Dick Cheney and George Bush should know that. John Kerry and I will keep America safe, and we will not divide the American people to do it.”John Edwards responded less quickly to this inflammatory statement from August 30th.... ...their failed leadership means that they cannot deal with the new threats we face. [...] We will ensure that we have the best ideas to make America stronger at home and... This is what they won’t do.The above accusation that the Bush administration cannot deal with terrorism, and will not ensure that they have the best ideas to make America stronger was brought to you by John "will not divide" Edwards. And this statement.... In his most pointed attempt yet to distinguish his stand on the war from President Bush’s, Sen. John Kerry said Wednesday that "extremism has gained momentum" and the world is more dangerous because of the Bush administration’s bungling in Iraq...is brought to you by John "no scare tactics" Kerry. So, you'll understand if I don't see any great problem with Dick Cheney saying that a Kerry administration's policies will increase the danger of terrorism. At least, that would be my position if that's what Dick Cheney actually said. It's not, and the press should be absolutely ashamed. They have raised Dowdified quotes to a new level, and the left--among others--has swallowed it whole. In reality--via Patterico--Cheney said.... We're now at that point where we're making that kind of decision for the next 30 or 40 years, and it's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice. 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 mind set 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 for us. And the more complete text, for context....
Cheney was pretty clearly not saying that a Kerry administration would be the cause of another attack. He was saying that, under a Kerry administration, we would react incorrectly to another attack. To make it more clear, let's remove the prefacing statements, and cut to the actual danger he cited.... Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that....we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set 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 for us.Reasonable people might disagree about whether Cheney is correct, but only the tendentious left (and the media? apparently so) can read this as a threat of another attack. And only the loony, intellectually dishonest left can both claim Cheney is willing to "destroy America", and bitch about having their commitment to America questioned. Only the partisan-to-the-point-of-dishonest left can tell Cheney to "stand by your damn words" while actually leaving out Cheney's "damn words". |
Jon, by doing this "To make it more clear, let's remove the prefacing statements, and cut to the actual danger he cited....", you're editing what he said. I watched this yesterday (w/ and w/out the entire statement) and I came away with "he's saying that if we don't vote for them and we get attacked, it was us who made the wrong decision. So you can't edit it for him, it's what he said, no?
Posted by: DannyBoy at September 8, 2004 09:09 AM
I would note that I only edited his statement after presenting his full statement. You can judge for yourself whether my "shorter Cheney" is an accurate representation of the intent of his statement.
It simply doesn't make sense that Cheney would warn that a Kerry administration would cause us to be attacked. After all, they've been warning for years now that we could be attacked again at any time. Including, yes, during Bush's term.
It does make sense--especially if one considers what Cheney's expressed position has been for quite a long time now--that his intention was to question the approach Kerry would take towards a terrorist attack.
It's the "pre-9/11 mindset" that he cites as a "terrible mistake for us".
Of course, the AP story doesn't allow you that information. It doesn't make for a good story, I suppose.
Posted by: Jon Henke at September 8, 2004 09:30 AM
The White House's official text punctuates it like this:
"We're now at that point where we're making that kind of decision for the next 30 or 40 years, and it's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice. 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 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war."
Ratzenfrackin' liberal Dowdifiers with their selective periods and capitalization.
Posted by: marguerite at September 8, 2004 09:31 AM
"Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again."
You don't have to look into it too much, it's right there in plain view. It's an election year, Jon. Sure, it's below the belt a little (telling me if I vote for Kerry and we get attacked, it's my fault) but it's right there.
Posted by: DannyBoy at September 8, 2004 09:40 AM
See my first response in the comment section.
Posted by: Jon Henke at September 8, 2004 09:49 AM
Ok....?
That's your interpretation.
Posted by: DannyBoy at September 8, 2004 10:12 AM
For what it's worth, I agree with Jon's interpretation, even with the Official period to break up the run-on sentence. If you stop the quote there, yeah, it looks over the top (and that was my first interpretation of it, too). The meaning of the paragraph, though, clearly follows through to the following sentence, focusing on the pre-9/11 viewpoint.
Posted by: *** Dave at September 8, 2004 10:42 AM
Let me get this straight. . . You're complaining that someone took Dick Cheney's quotes "out of context?"
Aren't you righties being a little too "sensitive?"
ROFLMAO. What girly men.
Posted by: Alex at September 8, 2004 10:50 AM
note that I was being completely sarcastic--"Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again." is a complete sentence in the transcript provided by the White House.
You may wish the AP provided some surrounding sentences, and I think they should have but it is as common as dirt for journalists to shorten quotes; it's not any great misdeed. You may argue that he really meant the third danger he listed instead of the first, but all of that is totally arguable and I think the AP's version is more accurate than your ellided one or your version punctuated by a Bush supporter to make Cheney's remarks sound as defensible as possible.
And yes, all of this is a lot less blatant than Cheney's "sensitive" hatchet job, which was widely quoted by the press. Many reporters did not provide the context of Kerry's full quote when they reported on Cheney's mischaracterization of it.
Posted by: marguerite at September 8, 2004 10:56 AM
Okay, how's this?
Alex said "me being little girly".
Looks like the context is okay to me, what do you think?
Posted by: looker at September 8, 2004 11:01 AM
What do you mean, looker?
And for the afternoon, I might not be posting as much. Been on here too much this morning.
Love the debates in here, though.
Posted by: DannyBoy at September 8, 2004 11:22 AM
You do realize that you're trying to argue against adulterating quotations or stripping them of context by including a "quotation" from John Edwards that has a 549 word elision in the center, don't you?
Posted by: impson at September 8, 2004 11:36 AM
looker said:
Alex said "me being little girly".
Yes, looker, I did say you (collectively) were being little girly men.
BTW, your grammar is awful.
And you missed the irony of anyone claiming Cheney's quotes were taken out of context, which was the whole point of my comment.
-
Posted by: Alex at September 8, 2004 12:38 PM
What I mean, and this applies to Cheney as well as to Kerry or anyone else, is that if the story is going to be told, and if the quote is relevent to the thread of the story, they should provide the quote, IN CONTEXT.
I believe that should apply to both sides of the aisle and I'm not giving either side a pass on it. If they're operating on a space limit they can wordsmith their own words to recoup the space, not omit context that would tend to engineer the quote for their purposes.
Context is what keeps the truth from being twisted into a pretzel.
Posted by: looker at September 8, 2004 12:45 PM
You'd be hard pressed to find a place where I was gleeful about Cheney's context shredding of the "sensitive war" statement.
Posted by: looker at September 8, 2004 12:49 PM
First the Republicans booo Clinton while the man is going into the hospital (and Bush did nothing to stop them), now this.
It is clear which side should be ashamed of the hate, fear and outright lies they spread.
Posted by: Stop Them! at September 8, 2004 01:00 PM
i think i know what Dick "The Boogeyman" Cheney is saying, for once.
he says, essentially, that if we make the wrong choice at the polls, that we may be attacked again...
which means (by my own interpretation), that he's telling us not to make the wrong choice on november 2nd.
he doesn't specify what the "wrong choice" is...but i think most of us know what the "wrong choice" is. i don't think it jives with the Boogeymans' intended bad guy, but that's fine.
I'm voting Kerry/Edwards...I'd hate to piss the Boogeyman off by making the wrong choice...
Posted by: tom hampton at September 8, 2004 01:02 PM
Though, now that you've made me review his statement. I think it's a silly ass thing to say too.
I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history.
I presume his 'sensitivity' is to get the French on board, or get other players on board (but not the ones he mocked the other day of course) to take one for the Gipper, I mean, take one for John and John in place of Americans.
What the hell is a sensitive war on terror whether you involve other nations or not?
How about " I will be more sensitive to the views of other nations as I recruit them to help us wage this war on terror in a more strategic, more proactive fashion."
That works for me, the way he said it doesn't.
Posted by: looker at September 8, 2004 01:02 PM
First the Republicans booo Clinton while the man is going into the hospital (and Bush did nothing to stop them), now this.
Oh, my god! Are you COMPLETELY UNAWARE that the booing reported by the AP never happened? That the AP reported made up the incident?
Did you not listen to the audio? Not only was there absolutely no booing, people in the crowded applauded when President Bush said we wish him and his family well.
You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts.
Posted by: Steverino at September 8, 2004 01:31 PM
First the Republicans booo Clinton while the man is going into the hospital (and Bush did nothing to stop them), now this.
LOL! You need to keep up MK. AP retracted that story days ago and apologized for its mischaracterization of the crowd response.
Posted by: McQ at September 8, 2004 01:43 PM
Sorry, I've been away for awhile. I'll try to respond to everything:
Marguerite:
The White House's official text punctuates it like this:They do not., as of 3pm eastern. Perhaps they changed it.
"It's Orwellian! They're changing the truth! Whoever transcribes audio to the web at the white house is the final arbiter! The Dastardly Bush administration is overriding his Constitutional Right to determine Punctuation!"
You may wish the AP provided some surrounding sentences, and I think they should have but it is as common as dirt for journalists to shorten quotes; it's not any great misdeedWell, yeah...regardless of placement of periods in a transcript, the point in editing it to retain context. Cheney's statement was taken out of context.
punctuated by a Bush supporter
Actually, at this point, I don't intend to vote for Bush.
And yes, all of this is a lot less blatant than Cheney's "sensitive" hatchet job, which was widely quoted by the press....and I have criticized that statement. In the past, I've noted that it's a funny thing for the Bush "hearts and minds" administration to decry. Kerry's "sensitive" remark was completely defensible. (which is not to say that I think his approach would be correct)
Dannyboy:
Love the debates in here, though.
I enjoy having you here, though I wish I wasn't so busy right now. I'm falling down on my follow-up responsibilities.
Posted by: Jon Henke at September 8, 2004 02:07 PM
Wow, Mr Hankey really does know a lot about intellectual dishonesty, doesn't he?
It's one of those irregular verbs:
"I remove prefacing statements for the sake of clarity.
"You selectively quote."
Posted by: ahem at September 8, 2004 05:00 PM
How can anyone possibly read that whole excerpt where he is talking about this being a war and what the proper response to actions by the other side in that war are, and then possibly come to the conclusion that he is saying that we will only be attacked if kerry is elected?
Look:
#1. He says that that we are in this war for the next 30 - 40 years, not "We are in this war for the next 30 years if Kerry is elected" and certainly not "We only face another terrorist attack if Kerry is elected.";
#2. He describes ONE danger, not three. That we will be attacked in an extremely hurtful way and THAT WE WILL RESPOND AS IF IT WERE A CRIMINAL ACTION AND NOT AN ACT OF WAR. One danger. The danger is not that we will be possibly be attacked, he takes that as a given. The danger is that we will respond to the attack in the wrong way. You can't just drop that "and" out of the sentence.
#3. He goes on for another entire paragraph pressing the point home. It is a war and we must respond as if it is a war.
Sorry, but it is lucid and absolutely clear.
Oh yeah, BTW Alex, it's only considered "taking something out of context" if the cutting away of the surrounding text somehow changes the meaning of the text presented or makes the meaning hard to determine. Otherwise it's simply called "quoting." Jon makes a very good case that ripping that passage from the surrounding text of Cheney's speech changes the meaning of the passage. How did Jon in any way change the meaning of the passage he quoted from Edward's response or the AP by cutting away the extra several hundred words? Your sarcasm remains baseless until you demonstrate that.
Posted by: Terry at September 8, 2004 07:05 PM
I used to think that Democrats were playing dumb, but now I realize they really are stupid. They tell us they were flummoxed by the butterfly ballot; they were led to believe that the Bush Administration assigned responsibility to Iraq for 9/11 when they said that we needed to go into Iraq because "9/11 changed everything" regarding our terrorism policy; they hear criticism of their patriotism when Republicans critique their foreign policy record and explicitly state that they aren't talking about the P word, etc.
Now, they are thrown by basic grammar where Cheney uses a conjunction to link the fourth stanza of his sentence to the previous two. The fact that his statement is made in the conjunctive means that it must be read in its entirety to understand its meaning. The danger Cheney is references is that "we will get hit again""in a way that will be devastating" and that we will "fall back" into thinking that terrorist attacks "are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war."
You can only play dumb so often before it becomes reasonable to conclude that you are dumb.
Posted by: jt007 at September 8, 2004 09:39 PM
But fighting terrorism IS more like fighting crime than like fighting a traditional war. We're not fighting nations for gosh sakes. It's awfully difficult to carpet bomb the terrorists since they are likely to be anywhere--- any country, any neighborhood. Anyone who thinks we are fighting a traditional war (well, besides the Iraq fiasco which has NOTHING to do with the war on terror) is a dangerous, ignorant, sub-chimp with soiled knickers.
Is "The war on terror" a war? Yes. But it won't be won by building missile defense systems, or invading nations just because we want to invade them.
Please, don't be stupid. Go ahead and be evil if you want to be evil, but don't be fucking stupid.
Posted by: PeskyFly at September 8, 2004 10:23 PM
And here I thought Cheney was endorsing John Kerry for President by correctly noting that our country will be in great danger if the wrong person (i.e Bush) is elected this November.
Someone please explain to me the difference between an "act of war" and a "criminal act." I thought we invaded Iraq because Saddam had committed "crimes against humanity." (The particular crimes keep shifting, from WMD to treating political prisoners like that paragon of democracy General Pinochet of Chile, but crimes, nonetheless.)
Everyone agrees Iraq needs more military police to help keep insurgents down. To my mind, there isn't any difference between the cop on the beat and the 101st Airborne other than the type and level of criminals they're trained to fight. (SWAT teams being an intermediate step.)
This garbage about "fighting a war" versus "criminal law enforcement" is an inferior grade of horse manure. In the "war" on drugs, undercover police are more useful than tanks - and Coast Guard cutters are more useful for interdicting smugglers' boats than a Ticonderoga-class cruiser.
Sending tanks and helicopter gunships against urban terrorists is like sending B-52 bombers against jungle-based guerillas: great pictures of explosions, but little if any tactical or strategic benefit. If, God forbid, Bush wins this election, Mr. Cheney will have a brainstorm and train US forces in SWAT team tactics, call it "urban warfare" and claim to be "fighting a war." rather than "fighting crime." Differences which make no difference are no difference.
Posted by: RepubAnon at September 9, 2004 12:13 AM
Maybe there's a difference because a "war" on drugs, doesn't involve suicide cocaine snorters who are willing to fly themselves into buildings to sell more drugs.
That's about MONEY, this one is about religion and control.
The fundamentalists are a danger to every civilized nation.
Instead of whining about evil America, suggest a plan that will work. I'm sure if it's not some pie in the sky idea where we all hold hands and sing Kum-bi-ya until the terrorists feel good about our cultural influence overwhelming their male dominated universe, and actually has merit, people might listen.
As it is all I see are people whining about how evil we are, chiefly because they don't happen to like the President.
Posted by: looker at September 9, 2004 07:30 AM
Come on "Repubanon", you can do better than that can't you?
First of all Ticonderoga-class cruiser's are by far superior to any Cutter on the water. Its onboard detection and tracking systems (i.e. an auto sized target at 250 miles plus) are far and away ahead of anything that floats, from any navy or coast guard in the world. The obvious proof is in the fact that one on the Pacific and one on the Atlantic side of Central America are on patrol nearly 24/7 365 days a year. The times that they aren't there its replacement is a Arleigh Burke class destroyer with the same detection suite.
As for this bit of nonsense: "SWAT team tactics, call it "urban warfare"
Your at least a decade and a half late with that observation. Urban warfare tactics are part and parcel of both the Marines and the Army.
Now what was your arguement again?
Posted by: Marc at September 9, 2004 09:36 AM
I was looking for more info on the "scare tactic" quote by Cheney, and I stumbled on to this site. Jt007 claims that us democrats have been playing dumb. I honestly can't understand how you could make a statement like that if you are a Bush supporter. If anyone is playing dumb it's the republicans and anyone else who refuses to take a very simple step back and look at what's going on. Who cares if something was gramatically incorrect? Who cares what context it was in? Just look at Cheney's background and the way that it shapes his foreign policy. I'm not one to be a conspiracy theorist at all, but Cheney's connections between Halliburton and the war and Iraq seem to be obvious. So if anyone is playing dumb in this election it's the republicans, because I know that your not stupid, you just choose not to see what's right under your noses.
Posted by: kyle17 at September 13, 2004 11:31 PM