The Washington Post series, by Bart Gellman (The Audit’s onetime officemate, I’m proud to say) and Jo Becker, so far gives readers wonderful insight into how things actualy work in Washington, and it reads like a dream. How Cheney runs over less-extreme opponents, including Ted Olson and John Ashcroft, is a something to see.
Among many nice details: Cheney’s office insisted, against Justice Department advice, that a deputy solicitor general tell Michael B. Mukasey, then the chief judge of the federal district court in Manhattan, that he “had erred so grossly he should retract his decision” providing a right to counsel to Jose Padilla. Uh, no. Mukasey, the Post says, derided the government’s argument and “added acidly that his order was ‘not a suggestion or request.’ “
I glanced at one installment in the series. It was as expected, a partisan piece. It included this example of journalistic tilt: "He has battled a bureaucracy he saw as hostile, using intimate knowledge of its terrain." "He saw." It's all in his head, it's a matter of perception; the reality may be entirely different. Yet newspaper readers have seen plenty of evidence that people at the Department of Justice, the CIA, and the State Department--to name three well-known centers of Executive power--have people hostile to this Administration and its policies.
In the interest of brevity, I'll stray from a critique of the series and turn to something close to hand, Dean Starkman's observation: "How Cheney runs over less-extreme opponents, including Ted Olson and John Ashcroft, is a something to see."
If Dick Cheney and John Ashcroft merit being called "extreme," has anyone at CJR ever used that adjective to describe Al Gore and Janet Reno, two people who recently held similar offices? Or ANY Democrat who has held a high elected or appointive position in recent decades? But even worse than slapping the adjective on Messrs. Cheney and Ashford is the description of former Solicitor General Ted Olson as "extreme." Where's the evidence for that?
Posted by Alfred J. Lemire
on Thu 28 Jun 2007 at 12:29 PM