Matalin tries to defend Cheney’s secrecy — and fails

February 17, 2006

I imagine it’s difficult for Dick Cheney’s allies and staffers to defend the Vice President’s penchant for secrecy, but when responding to criticism of Cheney’s proclivity to hide information, they really shouldn’t make things up. Yes, Mary Matalin, I’m looking at you.

Matalin appeared on NBC’s Today show yesterday to defend Cheney when Katie Kouric asked Matalin to respond to this paragraph from an LA Times editorial:

“Never mind the Armstrong Ranch. We wouldn’t know about the NSA program or even Abu Ghraib if Cheney had his way. The vice president has been the single most influential Washington advocate for White House secrecy since 1974, when he persuaded his then-boss, President Ford, to veto the Freedom of Information Act…. We’ll be living with the consequences of Cheney’s tight lips long after this week’s brouhaha fades.”

This was Matalin’s response:

“This is completely absurd. It was the Department of Defense that first revealed the Abu Ghraib situation. That wasn’t ‘uncovered’ and there was no cover-up. This was announced by the administration. This is absurd. The pejorative ‘secretive’ … is a creation of Cheney critics.”

Was Matalin right about Abu Ghraib? Not so much. As the New York Daily News explained today, the scandal was broken “by CBS News and The New Yorker in April 2004 — not by the Defense Department’s blandly vague and widely ignored press release on ‘reported incidents of detainee abuse’ at an unnamed facility.”

Indeed, the administration still hasn’t allowed an independent investigation of the abuses at Abu Ghraib, and as the Wall Street Journal noted yesterday, there is “still no reliable information on the numbers or identities of prisoners who died in U.S. custody.”

Matalin points to Abu Ghraib as a clear example of how Cheney and the administration aren’t secretive? I sometimes wonder if Bush allies like Matalin believe what they tell national television audiences or if they no longer care.

February 17, 2006 at 11:35 am

They no longer care. The Democrats don’t care enough to fight them, so why should they care?

There is a high correlation between “Bush Believers” and Evangelicals and BOTH require an active suppression of critical analysis (must “take it on faith” as it were)…so after awhile it just becomes rote (to repeat what they’re told) and that is why there’s such defensiveness when they are questioned. They feel so oppressed because they are not confident that what they “know” and what they (want to) “believe” have grown so far apart…the dissonance is slowly strangling them.

But, they are killing America and should not be pitied. Laughed at, ridiculed, and marginalized they shall be…but it’s gonna hurt til then…

Ed is right. No one fights them anymore, so they say whatever they want. Mary Matalin is absolutely pathetic.

For what it’s worth, E.J. Dionne is now calling Fox News what it really is; Republican State Television.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I think it really does go back to the 2000 election.

Republicans know they stole the White House. They know. They may think they were right to do so, or they may be so deep in denial now they can’t admit the truth to themselves. But they still know.

And guilt over ill-gotten gains messes you up. If you secretly feel what you’ve got is illegitimate, you never really connect with it. You can’t bring yourself to face it square on — its very presence is a constant reproof…tarnished goods. You may still hold on to what you’ve stolen; you may clutch it fiercely and fight off anyone you see as a threat (after all, you sacrificed your integrity to get the damned thing); but you find no comfort in it. You spoiled it when you stole it, and every day you live with it is another day of anger and reproach.

I think this is why it’s so difficult now for any Republican to repudiate the White House: six years of complicity and an ever-growing heap of guilt. They can’t really run the government, because that would be engaging with what they stole and it would hurt too much. All they can do is defend their turf, even though in their hearts, the turf lost its value the moment they took it. Guilty people fight with lunatic intensity (and intense lunacy), because they can’t let themselves see the truth.

One bit of truth can pop the biggest balloon…and the air inside stinks too much to bear.

I completely agree with the set-up in your first two paragraphs, Jim G, but after that I think you give the Rethugs far too much credit.

It isn’t guilt about their ill-gotten gains that has messed them up. It is gloating, gleeful arrogance that they were actually able to get away with it. Bush Light, his President of Vice etc dont feel guilt. But they do now realize just how untouchable they appear to be and are more than willing to exploit that at every turn.

Not to trump your excellent description, Jim Gardner — far from it — but the phenomenon you’re describing is covered by something I haven’t thought of since grad school (mid-late sixties), the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance.

I know about cognitive dissonance, and many people have mentioned it before me. I think it operates in a good many Republican voters; they voted for Bush and they’re reluctant to admit they were wrong.

Breaking through cognitive dissonance requires a sufficiently strong “kick” to shift the balance from one side of the dissonance to the other. Hurricane Katrina did that for many people, the drug plan fiasco will do it for a few more hold-outs, and (ever the optimist) I think run-of-the-mill Republican voters will rebel.

But voters haven’t built up the full-blown guilt complexes of GOP insiders. Voters have cognitive dissonance because they backed the wrong horse; insiders are the people who doped all the horses and now despise everything to do with racing but can’t get out because they’re making too much money.

I agree with Zeitgeist that some of the insiders are just thugs…maybe even sociopaths. But not all. A lot of insiders really did start out with consciences. That’s what makes them so angry. They won the prize by turning it into crap, and every day it sickens them.

Geez Jim Gardner, going all Crime and Punishment on us!!

I think it’s also got a lot to do with lessons from psy-ops. If you bury people under enough shit, eventually even the truth looks funny.

James Carville is an even bigger whore because he sleeps with her.

Good piece. One correction, however, it’s Couric with a “C”.

Below is the fruit produced by the current administration over the last 5 years:
… A destroyed economy …spending out of control ($1.5 billion on propaganda)… soaring out of control federal debt …massive trade imbalance … federal debt mortgaged by Communist China … failed and costly energy policy ($7 billion in royalty concessions)…a shrinking middle class …distribution of wealth to the rich and leaves others starving, homeless, unemployed and sickly…tax cuts for the wealthy bankrupting America…. a failed education system … reading and math tests for15-year-olds in America ranked 24th out of 29 nations …racism and poverty on the rise with deeper racial and class divisions …37 million living under the poverty line … world’s costliest health care system …46 million people without health insurance… 43rd in the world infant mortality rankings among developed countries… highest infant mortality rates in the developed world …degraded Medicaid/Medicare system in disarray… a diseased environment …corporate scandal at the highest levels … a destroyed, understaffed military force …disgruntled young military officers …military atrocities … Afghanistan supplying 90 per cent of the world’s heroin … a $6 billion a month invasion of Iraq, poorly planned, clumsy strategy, unwinnable and unending failure… a degraded Bill of Rights … a degraded quality of life …personal savings missing for many …individual spending greater than individual savings … political impaired CIA … politicization of intelligence and extensive fabricated intelligence failures …corporatocracy …detaining citizens without due process … warrantless spying on Americans …very low presidential job approval rating 39% …fear and loathing …no imagination …failure of leadership …crippled and tone-deaf leaders … loss of respect from most foreign countries …perceived as a overindulging rogue nation …loss of manufacturing/industrial jobs to China …Wal-Mart largest employer, lowest wages …Increased corporate crime and backroom deals … corporate executives jailed for cooking the books and looting billions …no sense of fair play…loss of moral and political authority …economic failure of small family-owned farms … Pederasty … an orgy of cronyism, corruption and incompetence…lack of effective responses to natural and man-made disasters …negligent government … open and frequent disclosure of classified information …open borders…corrupt and sleazy practices by congress and lobbyists … Abramoff influence-peddler and bagman for Republican causes … 60 congressmen and senators bribed …native American tribes robbed blind… young republican activist code named “Pac man” advances pro-apartheid government … incompetent officials perpetuating lies, fraud and deception …unlawful and dysfunctional cabal…officials guilty of high crimes and treason …widespread dishonesty, injustice, greed, graft and scandal … Attorney General sounded more like a mob mouthpiece …cynical hair-splitting, obfuscation, disinformation and stonewalling …uncontested stolen billions carved up in no-bid contracts awarded to politically-connected firms in sole source contracts …war profiteering …Deadeye Dick drunken shootout … meaningless ballots … the rape of our republic … huge risible and cynical propaganda ministry with “fake news” …faux media poodle,… death … torture… uncaring … incessant lying … demoralized and disconnected from reality…paralyzed with shame, embarrassment and fear… public doubt … unrestricted sociopath … tyranny … disregard for the Constitution … an outright assault on the Constitution …a complete disruption of the rule of law … lawlessness – no checks and balances … unilaterally discards treaties …… the list could go on and on as you know. Over the past five years, America’s sense of itself – its pride in its power and authority, its faith in its institutions and its belief in its leaders – has been profoundly damaged. 68% of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track, but can we do anything to change direction? Search your heart and help do something to change this condition! Our Liberties watch in disgust waiting for “We the People” to wake up.

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