The Cheney Interview Installment 1

NBC/Today Show national correspondent Jamie Gangel recently interviewed the Dickmeister. It ran on MSNBC this morning.

The self-congratulatory softball fest, billing itself as news, ran for slightly less than six minutes. If you wade through about a thousand car commercials today and don't blink, you might catch it again. They've promised to replay it.

Poppa Dick was shielded from tougher questions by handlers, no doubt, as well as his on-going Strategic Heart Trouble (SHT). One fifth of this morning's installment was devoted to talk about Cheney's heart; plaguing him since the 1980s when people began asking him serious questions about his role in some of the darker episodes in American history. You may recall some of them; Iran Contra, Panama, Gulf War I, Gulf War II, Valerie Plame, his take on water-boarding, the rendition program, and his involvement with Halliburton?

No? Nothing?

Throughout his career there has been a growing trend. The more serious the questions become, the more serious his ailment grows. It's so serious now, in fact, he wears electrical devices to keep himself alive.

"Liz! I am your father! Let's do a book!"

One notes Cheney's easy willingness to even consider a heart transplant. That's telling. Any other senior citizen would be coached to understand, it is not medically wise, and perhaps shading toward the unethical, to donate a heart to someone not expect to live much longer, when the organ can be given to a younger candidate with a great chance of success.

A human heart he's talking about here. An organ so rare, precious and complex, it cannot be supplanted by any known mechanical device, with any measure of meaningful success. He's comfortable with taking one from someone younger on the list. Sure. Did you expect less from Poppa Dick?

Not once in this segment did Gangel ask Cheney about Halliburton. Nor did she pester him with questions about the 100 day meeting with Big Oil executives which, perhaps, led to the fatal deregulation, which resulted in the BP oil spill. Chances are, in that she has chosen the non-neutral ground of Cheney's home for the interview, she never got round to it, and such honest inquiry befitting actual journalism will never be aired.

We wouldn't want to be impolite, of course. Wouldn't want to upset Poppa Dick in the confines of his lair, especially with his heart trouble.

Breaking it down. The vice president was charged with bribery in a Nigerian court. His former employer promised to pay the Nigerian government $250 million to make the charge go away. This didn't rate a question and likely won't in the upcoming segment of the interview.

We can safely predict this issue will be glazed right over, covered under the broader, gelded heading of "more controversial decisions?" or perhaps another softball, the like of which we heard this morning, namely "any regrets?"

Rating higher on the importance list this morning?Cheney's take on Sarah Palin's reality TV show; the attack in Tuscon and Obama's treatment of it, and the over all political landscape.

Remember Frost/Nixon? So far, this ain't it.

Corporate media strikes again?

Well, there's always tomorrow's segment.

Pffft....