Lynne Cheney, Wolf Blitzer, and ‘Sisters’ … oh my

October 28, 2006

If you haven’t already seen it, Lynne Cheney’s appearance on CNN yesterday — which was, shall we say, “combative” — is well worth watching.

Lynne Cheney repeatedly attacked CNN for having a liberal bias during a fiery and combative appearance today on the Situation Room.

Cheney said a CNN special that aired yesterday was a “terrible distortion of both the president and the vice president’s position on many issues,” in part because CNN used the phrase “domestic surveillance” to describe the so-called “Terrorist Surveillance Program.” When Wolf Blitzer pointed out that some individuals have been arrested and interrogated despite having no ties to terrorism, Cheney warned, “I think that you might be a little careful” declaring someone has “clean hands.”

Later, Cheney criticized Virginia Senate candidate Jim Webb for including sexually explicit material in his novels. Asked whether her own novel Sisters had “lesbian characters,” Cheney said, “no, not necessarily. This description is a lie. I’ll stand on that.” In fact, her novel did contain multiple scenes describing a lesbian love affair.

I’ve seen some comparisons between Lynne Cheney’s appearance yesterday and Bill Clinton’s recent interview on Fox News, but the comparison doesn’t quite work for me. Yes, Clinton wanted to talk about the CGI, but ended up talking about terrorism, just as Cheney wanted to talk about her new book, but ended up talking about CNN, media bias, and her old book. But the similarities end there.

Clinton told the truth; Cheney, not so much.

I’m including the most relevant transcript below, but two things jumped out at me. One, the arrogance on display was rather remarkable. Cheney seemed rather outraged to have to deal with these questions at all, as if she were above this sort of thing. Two, what made Cheney, a long-time political operative, think she could go on CNN shortly before a major election and not have to deal with some political questions?

It was quite a performance.

BLITZER: The Democrats are now complaining bitterly in this Virginia race, George Allen, using novels, novels that Jim Webb, his Democratic challenger, has written in which there are sexual references, and they’re making a big deal out of this. I want you to listen to what Jim Webb said today in responding to this very sharp attack from George Allen.

LYNNE CHENEY, WIFE OF VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: Now do you promise, Wolf, that we’re going to talk about my book.

BLITZER: I do promise.

L. CHENEY: Because this seems to me a mighty…

(CROSSTALK)

… a long trip around the merry-go-round.

BLITZER: This is in the news today and your name has come up, so that’s why we’re talking about it, but listen to this.

WEBB: There’s nothing that’s been in any of my novels in my view hasn’t been either illuminating surroundings or defining a character or moving a plot. I’m a serious writer. We can go and read Lynne Cheney’s lesbian love scenes if want to you know get graphic on stuff.

L. CHENEY: You know Jim Webb is full of baloney. I have never written anything sexually explicit. His novels are full of sexual explicit references to incest, sexually explicit references — well, you know I (INAUDIBLE) just want my grandchildren to turn on the television set this morning, Imus was reading from the novels and it — it’s triple x-rated.

BLITZER: Here’s what the Democratic Party put out today, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Lynne Cheney’s book featured brothels and attempted rape. In 1981 Vice President Dick Cheney’s wife, Lynne, wrote a book called “Sisters”, which featured a lesbian love affair, brothels and attempted rapes. In…

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: … 1988 Lynne Cheney wrote about a Republican vice president who dies of a heart attack while having sex with his mistress. Is that true?

L. CHENEY: Nothing explicit and actually full of lies. It’s not — it’s just — it’s absolutely not…

BLITZER: Did you write a book entitled “Sisters”?

L. CHENEY: I did write a book entitled “Sisters”…

BLITZER: It did have lesbian…

L. CHENEY: This — no, not necessarily. This description is a lie. I’ll stand on that.

BLITZER: There is nothing in there about rapes and brothels?

L. CHENEY: Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, could we talk about a children’s book for a minute?

BLITZER: We can talk about the children’s book…

L. CHENEY: I think our segment is like 15 minutes long…

(CROSSTALK)

L. CHENEY: … and…

BLITZER: I just…

L. CHENEY: … 10 minutes…

BLITZER: I just wanted to clarify what’s in the news today…

L. CHENEY: Sex, lies and distortion, that’s what it is.

BLITZER: This is an opportunity for to you explain on these sensitive issues.

L. CHENEY: Wolf, I have nothing to explain. Jim Webb has a lot to explain.

It wasn’t just Webb and lesbians, of course. The interview also included Cheney (unfairly) castigating CNN, talking about water-boarding, and accusing Wolf Blitzer of running “terrorist propaganda.” C&L has a lengthy clip; it’s must-see TV.

If you think she gave a “combative appearance”, think what Fat Bastard would do, appearing in an interview where actual questions got asked, rather than showing on up a show with some rural halfwit who thinks “dunking” people is a good idea. Dickless would likely explode under the pretty-gentle questioning of Blitzer.

And these insane assholes are who runs the country….

  • “…just want my grandchildren to turn on the television set this morning, Imus was reading from the novels and it — it’s triple x-rated.”

    I’ll assume, from context, that what she was saying is that she didn’t want her grandchildren to hear about Webb’s sex scenes on Don Imus.

    First, her grandchildren watch Imus??

    Second, whose fault is it that “triple x-rated” material is on the TV? Webb or Imus?? Or, by extension, George Allen?

  • The Righties so much want to come on any media venue and have their 15 minutes of modulated, calm, flattering, non confrontational face time and then leave without a feather ruffled. It really allows them to put forth a confident facade and leave that impression of unflustered control.

    It’s why the hollowness of their ideas needs to be understood and then relentlessly highlighted and poked at. They’ve got no patience for explaining themselves beyond marketing phrases. They don’t believe they should be questioned. Their only idea is “be obedient”. They’ve been very good at keeping up that front of cool competence but it’s an undeserved refuge and it’s time to barge in there and ask them what they’re all about.

  • “And these insane assholes are who runs the country….”

    Yep. So many assholes, so much time left.

  • Lynne Cheney: I have never written anything sexually explicit.

    Does anyone have Cheney’s & Webb’s books? I’d like to see a quote of some of the most “sexually-explicit” passages from her “Sisters” and then a quote of some of Webb’s most “sexually-explicit” passages from HIS book.

    It sure sounds like a case of high-dudgeon hypocrisy.

  • Here is my favorite exchange.

    BLITZER: Did you write a book entitled “Sisters”?

    L. CHENEY: I did write a book entitled “Sisters”…

    BLITZER: It did have lesbian…

    L. CHENEY: This — no, not necessarily. This description is a lie. I’ll stand on that.

    BLITZER: There is nothing in there about rapes and brothels?

    L. CHENEY: Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, could we talk about a children’s book for a minute?

    Let me expand on CB’s analysis.
    Cheney cut Blitzer off when the word lesbian came out of his mouth so we can’t be sure what he was about to ask. My guess is it would have been sex or character. But Cheney’s answer, “no, not necessarily,” makes no sense regardless of what would have came next. Either the novel contained an act or a person which could be described as lesbian or it didn’t. Even more telling is that Blitzer was able to complete the next question and Cheney tries to change the subject back to here children’s book.

    How does this stack up against the Clinton interview? If all you look at is the drama, then they are similar. However, if you look at the content there is a huge difference. While both protested the line of questioning as not germane to the respective purposes of their interviews, Clinton, nonetheless, addressed the questions and Cheney dodged them.

  • The funny thing is that Webb was a Republican when he wrote his novels.
    I’m not sure if we can say that O’Reilly’s book reflects on his sanity if we say that Webb’s doesn’t. It’s all fiction, and that’s just the Republican campaign promises.

  • Either the novel contained an act or a person which could be described as lesbian or it didn’t.

    Perhaps she meant, “Hey, just because my characters munched rug in a scene or three doesn’t mean I wrote them as, y’know, lesbians. It was just experimentation.”

  • PS. I wonder if Lynne Cheney would object if her grandchildren heard Imus reading sexually-explicit passages from her book?

  • According to USA Today,

    Sisters has long been out of print and is not mentioned in Cheney’s biography on the White House Web site. In 2001, she told a New York Times reporter that she couldn’t even remember the plot.

    But I have found a site which has excepts of the “good parts” of the book as well as the entire book in pdf format. Click here if you dare.

  • excepts=excerpts
    One of these days I will type an entire comment without making any mistakes. This one doesn’t count.

  • LOL. I am at work administering an ACT. Bess, our network monitoring system, blocked the page to excerpts from her book for profanity. Bess doesn’t block Penny Arcade, VG Cats or Something Positive. I am amused.

    PS- Bess currently blocks all blogs but CB. Bess has good taste.

  • The worst part is where she goes on and on about the “terrorist propaganda” CNN is putting on and blithely says CNN wants the terrorists to win. What the fuck? How stupid is she?

    Has she not seen the RNC ad that glorifies their position?

  • Maybe we should be discussing how Lynne Cheney fantasized about American frontier lesbianism five full years before Jim Webb wrote the book that Felix is so up-in-arms about.

    Or, perhaps we should be contacting all of our Reich counterparts in the bizarro-right blogs, and asking what THEY think about Lynne Cheney’s affinity for what Mr. Dobson would refer to as “the abomination of a woman laying with a woman?”

    Let’s see if Drudge has the courage and fortitude to “break” this one….

  • Steve

    I haven’t read all of Cheney’s book and won’t — it’s TERRIBLE writing — but I’ll swear that what I’ve seen looks more anti-male than lesbian. Maybe she thought that women become lesbians because they’re abused by men, of course, not true. Wonder whence her sympathy arose?

  • Republicans and their beautiful minds … what an awful world they live in that such icky things as sex and such disturbing images as the caskets of soldiers they sent to their deaths mess with their Mayberry facade of comfortable upper class existence. Thank god they are acting as thought police to rid this world of disturbing reality. Funny how violence, death, sex and other nastiness is so pure when a Republican thinks about but it but so evil in the minds of others.

  • CHENEY: Well, Wolf, could we talk about a children’s book for a minute?

    Ah, I see, writing sexually-explicit novels about Vietnam make Webb unsuited to hold public office, but writing sexually-explicit novels about lesbianism and extramarital sex, rape and brothels fit Lynne Cheney to write children’s books?

    Republican logic at work. Just like Republican math, Republican science, and Republican morals.

  • From the Plaid Adder’s review of Sisters:

    At the end of the day, folks, Lynne Cheney is just not about sex; she’s all about the money and the power. Specifically, this novel about how the smart thing for a woman to do is to get her hands on as much money and power as she can have without exposing herself to the dangers that threaten all the women who challenge the capitalist/patriarchal system. Sophie sums it all up a few pages after she’s done having sex with her cattle baron:

    “Sophie pondered a moment why she had been able to remain a member of polite society despite having violated so many of its rules, and she decided the reason was her position. As head of Dymond Publications, she could impose her will on others, and as long as she could do that, the world could not entirely cast her down with its opinions. An insight came to her: this is what men have always known. This is why they can behave privately in ways that violate the public morality and not be ruined. Because they have power.”

  • I should have said Plaid Adder’s excellent and insightful review. I just re-read it and you can’t believe how much it explains about the Cheneys’ and the Bushes’ worldview. Basically, they believe that power is its own justification, and that the powerful are entitled to be above the law and morality. It sounds similar to the neoconservative ideas of Strauss and Kristol that say that there should be a ruling elite that play by a different set of rules from the common masses. Except even those neoconservatives pretend that it’s ultimately for the benefit of all mankind, whereas in Cheney’s book, it is sufficient that the wealthy benefit from this arrangement, the rationale being that it’s better for a few people to be extremely wealthy and everyone else a teensy bit poorer, than everyone be poor. Or something like that. http://www.democraticunderground.com/plaidder/04/37.html

  • Katie

    Yes, it is an excellent and insightful review. Thanks for posting the link.

    I think the writing is terrible myself.

  • The worst part is where she goes on and on about the “terrorist propaganda” CNN is putting on […] — Dave G., @14

    No. The worst is her saying to Blitzer:
    “I think that you might be a little careful” declaring someone has “clean hands.”

    Next thing you know, Blitzer, who hadn’t been “careful enough”, is declared “enemy combatant” by the Decider, at the instigation of the Aimless Dickie.

    Re the book itself: It all depends on what one considers as “explicit”. As far as the sex *scenes* go, if those are the most explicit/graphic ones, they’re “small potatoes”, given what was being written (and filmed) in the early 80ties. They’re on a par with the rest of the “romance market” — things are somewhat veiled, but easily “understood”.

    But, if you consider how explicitly sexual love between women is portrayed… It’s certainly almost as explicit as Colette’s Claudine series (and, as such, about 80yrs behind in the “scandal stakes” )

    What amuses me (oh, my warped sense of humor! Will I ever be rid of it?) is something else…

    Suppose one were to accept Allen’s “logic” (into which Lynne seems to have bought, wholeheartedly) that, what a character in a novel says or does is, somehow, representative of what the author is (or thinks).

    Ie: Webb’s book shows a character who puts his little son’s penis into his mouth. Ergo, Webb is a latent homosexual pedophile (wonder what it makes my deceased Mother; she used to kiss my butt — and my face, and my arms, and my legs — whenever she pulled me out of the bathtub to dry… She used to say I was “her miracle”).

    OK. But, by that same token… Lynne Chenney is a man-hating lesbian, who feels like a prostitute, whenever she has to submit to her husband’s embraces and who considers him a potential murderer by having filled her with his seed and having forced her to bear his children. Given what we know of Aimless Dickie, I’m not saying she’s wrong in her estimate, but it’s “funny”/funny all the same…

    And one can’t help but wonder… When she was writing that book, 25 yrs ago, did she share her thoughts/beliefs with her (then) 9yr old daughter? Has little Mary been turned off men by her Mom? The current thought on gays seems to be that it’s more nature than nurture, but the right-wing doesn’t believe that; they think one can be “seduced” into “gayhood”, and, conversely, led out of it (if only one accepts Jesus). So… What’s the truth behind Mary Chenney’s “preference”?

  • “…just want my grandchildren to turn on the television set this morning, Imus was reading from the novels and it — it’s triple x-rated.”

    And this is Webb’s fault just how?

    But the real story here is how Ms. Cheney does not like General Michael V. Hayden (AF Rtd)’s warrantless wiretapping program which produces thousands of tips but less than 1% actual intelligence to be called “domestic surveillance”.

    Too F**KING Bad!

  • I’ve got to give it to Lynn Cheney! She took on Wolf Blitzer and the whole CNN station and came out ahead! If you don’t believe CNN consistently gives biased news reports, watch its “straight” news for a day. Way to go, Lynn!
    “UPPITY WOMEN UNITE!”
    M. Sullivan
    Registered Republican Voter in Montana

    P.S. Conrad Burns is going DOWN . . . he has taken bribes, then lied about it, taken racial pot shots at minority groups, yelled at Virginia firefighters who were here to help put out our forest fires, and is generally an embarrassment to our great Western state! He’s gotta gooooooo . . .

  • It never ceases to amaze me at the filth and dirt that come out of the mouths of these liberals when making comments. Four and seven letter words are a commom part of their vocabulary. Have they no decency, nor character? Have they no education, nor parents who taught them common decency or anything other then filth? I doubt any of them have more then grade school education. They talk about those running our country well I certainly wouldn’t want these liberal dirtbags running our country and spewing filth and four letter words at every press conference. You may respond to this but I suggest you first send a copy of your dirty mouth comments to your mother so she can proudly share your accomplishments with other family members including your grandparents during this coming thanksgiving and Christmas.
    VIrgo

  • THANK GOD FOR NEWTONS THIRD LAW OF MOTION
    “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”

    This twisted sister and her hubby’s actions have come to bite them in the behind…. and they are so anesthetized on
    power and greed they haven’t got a clue why they are questioned????

  • Amazing… this is reply #30 regarding a non-issue.
    The news has no mention of all of the positive achievements… on either side. What a waste of time and energy. CNN is king of the negative news and Lynne Cheney did the right thing by tearing into the talking head.

    WHO CARES what is in a book?
    Who cares who sucks who in the oval office?
    Who cares what emails someone sends to pages?
    Billions are wasted on the BS… why? because YOU think it’s “interesting”!

    SOLVE SOME PROBLEMS and quit complaining and blaming. The common ground is where we need to be.

    One thing the USA is missing is a common idealogy…. like in the few days following 9/11. This missing piece is our biggest obstacle.

  • My goodness. What a lot of nitpicking.
    Good for Lynne Cheney: She came on CNN to discuss her new children’s book, and was purposely ambushed.
    So Wolf Blitzer got a butt load of rock salt. What – did he think she was defenseless, or that she wouldn’t shoot back.
    The coward got what he deserved. Maybe next time he’ll take a more honest and decent approach with his guests.

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