This is weird, though predictable. Beltway reporters are attacking Gibbs for his “I guess Rush was busy” comments about Dick Cheney.
Here’s Chip Reid (via TPM):
Reid: Can I ask you, when you referred to the former Vice President, that was a really hard-hitting, kind of sarcastic response you had. This is a former Vice President of the United States. Is that the attitude — is that the sanctioned tone toward the former Vice President of the United States from this White House now?
Here’s Rick Klein via Yglesias (and how scary is it that he’s made The Note worse than when Halperin was doing it?):
Gibbs on Chney critique: “I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy.” wow — we’re talking about the former vice president here
Cheney said that he’d “pay to see” a debate between Rush and Obama and has repeatedly said that Obama has left the nation open to attack. Why don’t we get a “wow, he’s talking about the sitting president” here?
Dick Cheney still has higher status in the Village than Barack Obama. It’s that simple.
John Cole
It is going to be awesome watching the Republicans rush to Cheney’s defense and rub the taint all over themselves.
They really can’t play this game, can they?
Eric K
And I’m sure that they’ll be saying the same thing whenever a Republican says something negative about Al Gore…
Ash
Why would you even bother asking that, even if it was rhetorical? The whole lot of them are fucking idiots. Only in their pea-sized brains does it make sense to rush to the defense of one of the most disliked men in the WORLD.
dougie smooth
The appropriate response from Gibbs to Reid would have simply been, "Go fuck yourself."
Mnemosyne
None of that matters, because Al Gore is fat.
Azhrie139
Actually, this is hilarious and regardless of whether it is a strategy or not. I can foresee positive impacts from a media dust up on this. Everyone hates Cheney, even republicans. I am all about our incompetent media losing further credibility by defending Cheney and simultaneously making the republicans defend Cheney to make them the Rush/Cheney party.
Delia
I’m sure if Cheney were still Vice, those poor besieged
execsthieves at AIG would have some protection. Maybe from Blackwater. It’s horrible when the lower classes get uppity.Keith
I was hoping for a "If Citizen Cheney is not happy with the government, he is more than welcome to write a sternly-worded letter to any of his state’s elected officials, who may then take said concerns to the halls of Congress."
TheHatOnMyCat
Village? People who think that silly-assed Cheney interview is actually important to anyone that matters?
Because, it isn’t.
Dick Cheney had popularity ratings just slightly above cancer. Who gives a fuck what he said, or who criticized him?
El Cid
As a commenter pointed out somewhere (yglesias?), they apparently have no problem with Cheney alleging that Obama, the current President, is making the nation vulnerable to attack.
So, Cheney can go on the TV box and say all kinds of hyped up bullsh*t about the current President, and if anyone knows anything about topics like "brazen deceit" and "making the nation vulnerable to attack" it’s giganto failure-at-all-but-murder, bombing, torture, and thievery Dick Cheney, but OMG don’t you joke abot tha formur Vice FourthBranch Preznit.
Comrade Stuck
Cheney said of Rush in the King interview, "love him". GOP, the party of Darth and Dittohead on road to the bottom.
Rainy
Umm, Chip. How did you feel when Cheney slammed Obama’s foreign policy, management of the economy and everything else. This is the President of the United States we’re talking about about, jerk!
George Bush hasn’t said a word but Cheney is still running his mouth. This guy has got a lot of nerve. What a joke.
chuck
I think the most appropriate response to Chip "Ugly Heads" Ried’s line of questioning would be "Yes Helen, you had a question?" or "Yes, Savannah, you had a question?"
Legalize
Leave Chipper alone. He, like any sniveling, boot-licking twat is just trying to earn a cookie so that when he’s at the right Washington parties he can talk about how he’s not part of the liberal intelligentsia.
calipygian
Didn’t Dick "Mr. Congeniality" Cheney tell a sitting United States Senator to go fuck himself?
Just checking.
4tehlulz
@TheHatOnMyCat: Cancer is offended by your comparing it to Cheney.
Comrade Stuck
Only to provide the glorious stake to be driven thru the heart of the GOP.
GOP heart. Misnomer. The shriveled prune in their chest/better
Margaret
…boy, I am ready for Cheney to crawl back into his bunker and for someone to seal that toxic shit away. With cement.
Mike S
Silly libruls. Here’s how it goes.
A former Democratic President (Bill Clinton) or Democratic Vice President (Al Gore) makes a comment in the press about how bad the current Republican President, the media will attack those formers for abandoning the long held principles of formers not attacking currents. Just look back to the Bush admin for that.
But a former Republican Vice President (Small Dick Cheney) attacks a current Democratic President gets what response from the media? An attack against the current Democratic admin for hitting back.
Yur ulcers will thank you silly libs if you just sit back and enjoy it.
TheHatOnMyCat
@4tehlulz:
True.
LionelMandranke
You just have to continue to be amazed at Obama’s ability to attract the most incompetent adversaries possible. Cantor, Steele, Limbaugh, Cheney, etc. Could anybody possibly have picked a better line-up to go against?
Wow.
The Moar You Know
Who would have thought that anyone would use the phrase "George Bush has more class than (fill in blank)."
George Bush is showing a fuckload more class than most of his party these days. I will give him full credit for that.
Zifnab
Wait, I’m confused. Shouldn’t Cheney take this as a compliment? Everyone loves Rush Limbaugh. He said so on his show just this morning. Even people who hate him secretly love him, they’re just too jealous to admit it because he’s so successful and well-rounded. Why, if more people would just listen to Rush’s show, everyone would agree with him because he’s just that smart and funny and all-around wonderful.
So I guess what I’m really saying is, how long till Gibbs and Cheney offer Rush Limbaugh an apology?
Lev
Attacking a Republican means abuse on how "partisan" you are. Attacking a Democrat usually doesn’t. Reporters have internalized these rules to such an extent that even listening to someone else slam a Republican makes them feel as though they are complicit in a partisan attack and therefore uncomfortable.
This is Villager 101 stuff. I’m assuming this was a rhetorical question.
Singularity
Here’s hoping for one last heart attack.
Mike S
@Singularity:
Nice. Nothing like becomming what you hate.
The Moar You Know
Well, Dick Cheney is not some uppity Negro aspiring beyond his station in life. If not for affirmative action and welfare, Obama would be shining Cheney’s shoes.
No snark. That’s really how the "Villagers" think.
DougJ
Yes, it was.
Surreal American
Hell, John, they can’t even find the court!
Zifnab
@The Moar You Know:
George Bush got the hell out of DC and never looked back. Think College Years Redux. Just because the puppet gets put back on the shelf doesn’t mean the puppet knows how to exit gracefully. The puppeteers just aren’t going back to that act after over four years of boos and cat calls.
Besides, when has George Bush ever been let out in front of a media not softened to a marshmallow pulp? Right now everyone is looking for someone to blame. Sticking the former Leader of the Free World in front of the cameras will just remind everyone one more time about what the were voting against in November.
This has absolutely nothing to do with class. Expect Boy George to be trotted out in front of the cameras in a year or two to a rousing refrain of "Hail to the Chief" while conservative pundits wax nostalgic about the American Glory Days that evil socialnista Obama stripped from us when the future worst President ever retroactively crashed the stock markets in October ’08.
Nikki
I’m still trying to figure out what all the hoopla is about. Didn’t Cheney go on Rush’s show during his tenure? Why do the villagers now consider it an insult to the former VP?
TR
They’re still running around the halls like Spinal Tap looking for the stage.
The Moar You Know
@John Cole: They are like a dog, who rolls in the smelliest dead animal they can find and then come running back towards you, assuming that you will love them even more because they have increased their smell quotient.
First Rush and then Dick Cheney.
It’s hard to watch someone pick out the heaviest anvils to go skydiving with.
Krista
And somewhere in Nashville, Al Gore can be heard saying, "Um, helloooooo?"
jetan
Please God, let’s encourage Cheney to keep it up. This is nothing but win as far as the eye can see. Were talking "Potterville" here.
Krista
Mental images of Cheney’s taint…
Kill me now.
Michael
I always prefer the "dog returning to taste its own vomit" simile.
kay
I think it’s becoming clear that the long knives are out for Barack Obama. I may have to rush to his defense. I’m not thrilled with him, but I hate these people. Easy call.
I just assumed former Vice President Cheney was out ‘n about defending torture because he knew the latest gory, graphic descriptions of his torture policy were coming out yesterday.
Let us never accuse these newshounds of not connecting the dots. They’re on it.
A credible and exhaustive report that details the torture policy of the United States towards those held restrained and in custody was published yesterday. The whole country knows Cheney was behind it. Reporters respond with lipstick on a pig.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
Only took him eight years to do that…We’ll see how long Bush stays classy. I think he’s slated for his first speaking engagement during the summer, maybe around June or July.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
Ohh, now I get it. The Villagers are just afraid of getting shot in the face.
Woodrowfan
that assumes he hasn’t been passed out and lying in a pool of his own vomit since, oh, 21 January.
eemom
Gibbs is now officially My Hero.
Anyone who continues to provide a forum for The Antichrist (aka the former Vice President of the United States) to spew his venomous filth on the public airways ought to be sentenced to go on a fucking hunting trip with him. And hold the booze so this time he doesn’t miss.
Delia
@TR:
Hey, these guys make Spinal Tap look like the Rolling Stones.
Just Some Fuckhead
Is this really the village according Cheney more respect than he is entitled to or is it our typically lazy journalistic culture running with faux outrage pushed by Republican operatives? I’m better the latter.
J. Michael Neal
Why do you have to drag female genitalia into this? I like female genitalia.
MikeL
"Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions."
chrome agnomen
@singularity
never mind the one last heart attack. i’ve said for years that i never want cheney to die; i want him to live another 100 years–in constant excruciating pain.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
Obama to Washington Media: Drop dead.
Thank goodness somebody on our side knows where the power is these days.
The old days are over. Someday, even the blogs will catch up to this.
Okay, I’m kidding about the last part, they won’t.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
Just a blurb from my link above, I’d have slid it into that post but my dog ate the edit link. And I don’t even have a dog, so go figure.
Anyway, I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time to just say, Fuck the Village. Fuck it very much.
You?
Zifnab
@TheOfficialHatOnMyCat: Stop changing your god damn handled already.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
@Zifnab:
Stop using the same boring handle all the time, for crissake.
Where did you get that thing, at a yard sale?
MikeJ
I wish. Bring on the extreme left positions. So far Obama is basically a sane republican. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but if there were any sane right wingers in this country, they’d be Obamites.
mak
This, combined with Chip’s "dems raising their ugly heads" mutterings, has him passing Jake Tapper for the lead in best wank-baggery amongst the wh press corpse.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
@Zifnab:
Let me explain something you, mister boring handle guy.
I post, in the course of a week, from as many as two dozen combinations of machines and browsers.
Handles get stored as cookies associated with browser and user.
Do you really think I am going to carefully synch up all those machines and browsers with one handle for myself just to make your life easier?
Tell you what, send me a check for $1000, and I will do it just for you.
Because, as you know, I like you.
Oh, and the check is payment for one year. Next March, another check will be due.
TIA.
Your friend, SnarkIntern.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
@TheOfficialHatOnMyCat:
Sorry, inflation. It’s going to be $1500.
Your faithful pal, ppG.
opium4themasses
And they said Jon Stewart wouldn’t be able to find humor after Bush left office.
New tag? Keeping Stewart Employed?
demkat620
Why is anybody listening to Dick Cheney about anything?
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Mom! Dad! Stop fighting! I hate it when you fight!
/rushes out of thread in tears/
Comrade Stuck
Great, a pissing match on handles. Nobody here can beat the stunning allegorical simplicity of Stuck. In the murky world of false personas, you can nab a Zif or put a hat on anything. It is written.
Comrade Stuck
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse:
It’s the way of the world Mary. Bankers will be Bankers and boys will be boys.
MikeJ
Girls, girls, you’re both pretty.
Paul L.
On the subject of Rush.
The Difference
But not Moonbattia
Meet the Bloggers for August 22nd, 2008
demkat620
@Paul L.: Can you really not tell the difference between anonymous bloggers and the former Vice President of the United States?
Comrade Stuck
@Paul L.:
Michael Moore is fat, I tell you. We let them collect their awards before throwing them under the hogcart, being compassionate teary eyed liberal weiners. Come election day though, it’s a different kettle of porkulous/
gwangung
Explains a lot about the quality of his postings.
TenguPhule
Of course not.
PaulL has the IQ of a rotting turnip.
SATSQ.
Comrade Stuck
Wingnut Pheromones.
MikeJ
As far as I know, the anonymous bloggers have never shot anybody in the face.
opium4themasses
@John Cole:
TenguPhule
Even cancer gets attention if you plaster its mug on TV all of the time.
msw
When has Rush Limbaugh debated anyone other than his Oxycontin dealer? What a joke, Rush wouldn’t last 5 minutes in a debate with Genine Garofalo.
TenguPhule
If AIG steals any more money, all bets are off.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
Oh, good grief. Is that the Paul L? I thought he slashed his wrists when Obama won the nomination.
Paul L.
@demkat620:
Maybe you should go the the Meet the bloggers web page.
Meet the bloggers is a project of "Outfoxed" producer Robert Greenwald
Are these anonymous bloggers?
Arianna Huffington, Senator Harry Reid, Matt Stoller, Rachel Maddow, Senator Bernie Sanders, Media Matters Paul Waldman, Henry Rollins, SEIU Pres. Andy Stern, Mike Farrell, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Jonathan Alter, John Cusack and Matthew Yglesias
And the host is Cenk Uygur formerly of Air America.
MikeJ
He tried. Electric razors aren’t the best tool for every job.
Comrade Stuck
Janeane
She knows Jack Bauer/
Comrade Stuck
@Paul L.:
Who the fuck cares. Is this all wingnut’s have to return fire. Jaysus, the right wing echo chamber needs to flush it’s toilette.
gil mann
Xeckhoweverthehellyouspellit, you’re thinking of someone else. This Paul L.’s less tedious by several orders of magnitude. PUMA trumps wingnut.
Paul L.
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
WOLVERINES!
That should drive John C. insane.
SLKRR
@LionelMandranke:
Let’s not forget to include in that all-star lineup McCain, Palin, and Alan Keyes. Oh, and Jindal, too. This could turn out to be a fun 8 years.
The Populist
So wait…Darth would PAY to see Obama eviscerate Rushbo?
Really? Does he really believe the fat smart ass can debate? I’ve seen Rush get cornered easily in the past and it explains why he won’t debate on the phone.
He’s a clown.
MikeJ
BTW, when did "distraction" become the worst thing in the world to be accused of. Forbes now says complaining about AIG handing out $165,000,000 in taxpayer’s money is a "distraction."
The Populist
Cheney popping off like this is akin to a like minded group like us making a solid point about why Rushbo sucks. Then you have Brick Oven Bill or Atanjuanat (or whatever) pop in to challenge that we are being mean and liberal-y. The point is nobody would care what BoB and Ata said unless they can actually talk through their points with some depth and not talking points. They won’t, same as Cheney cuz he’s irrelevant.
The Populist
jenniebee
OT – Anybody else following the Ross Douthat grossed out by boobies meme?
The Populist
Man do I need to spell better HEAR vs. HERE. Argh.
MikeJ
Douthat is trying to keep American youth pure by giving them mental pictures of him in the sack with someone.
Ash Can
Note to self: If CBS continues to employ Chip Reid on the White House beat, CBS cannot be trusted to convey accurate and/or substantive exec. branch news.
DougJ
Yeah, I actually cut him a little slack on that one. It’s weird and it sure as hell doesn’t make him sound very heterosexual, but people write all kinds of weird stuff along those lines when they’re kids (he was, what, 23, when he wrote it?).
Cyrus
To be exact, off the top of my head I don’t see any inconsistency here, and I don’t see bias against the Democratic Party. It just looks like bias against democracy itself to me.
Bush’s press secretary at the time singled out Bill Maher as explicitly and critically as the Obama administration has singled out Limbaugh, and to more harmful effect, at least so far – but did Bush himself ever do so? Not as far as I know. Reagan wrote an editorial critical of Clinton, but not while Reagan was in office. Bush’s surrogates have blamed Clinton for lots, but did Bush or Cheney himself? Maybe a few times, but AFAIK only during the campaigns. Did Clinton single out any of his critics while in office? The pattern here is that the president and vice-president must remain above the fray. If one of the rabble (or an ex-president or ex-VP, for whom the stature is a lifelong thing but not the responsibility) makes a personal attack on the president, well, the received wisdom of the Founding Fathers makes it legal. For the president to reciprocate – to even hint at reciprocating – is to insult his office in all its ceremony and/or America itself.
It’s a mix of the monarchy that the founders of the republic tried but apparently didn’t quite manage to banish, and an irresponsible nostalgia for the sedate style of political debate that supposedly held sway in a completely fictional era of early American politics.
Surreal American
@Paul L.:
Feel free to point out the next time (or first time) a major Democratic politician throws himself in front of Moore’s feet, quivering in abject fear that he or she might have inadvertently insulted the portly Sage of Flint, Michigan.
Cyrus
@DougJ: I thought the thing that really grossed him out was the birth control? If you want to give him a pass on that too because he was 23 at the time, fine; but I think he has doubled down on that belief in the intervening years.
Surreal American
@Surreal American:
Slightly edited for gender balance purposes
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
You’re still not over the trauma of Tunch and the Toothbrush, are you, John?
DougJ
I don’t think that’s clear from the context.
Adrienne
Now THAT’S economic stimulus I can believe in! Cheney is richer than God.
Hell, I’D pay to see it too:-)
GSD
Breaking News:
DNA swabs of CNN reporter/hack John King’s chin has determined large quantities of Dick Cheney’s testicular tissue.
-The Boys at the Lab
Mike in NC
He’s probably been on a six week bender at the dude ranch in Crawford.
r€nato
Damn you, Mike in NC!
handy
@Mike in NC:
Someone how I picture him cradling a fifth around all bleary eyed and lurching around, telling old "war stories" about being prez to anyone who would listen, punctuated with insane comments like: "K-k-k-karl wonsh told meh, ‘I haz a bukkit!’" or "That ain’t no country I know! I’m from Texas, boy, gimme shum gash!"
bago
I believe we all know about the taint in DC.
JenJen
@jenniebee: I’m definitely taking it more as a "Ewww, I’m grossed out by women who use birth control" post.
Funnier than boobies.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Dick Cheney still has higher status in the Village than Barack Obama. It’s that simple.
Nobody’s worried Obama is going to attack their nuts with a bolt-cutter…
jeff
Cheney, bitter to the end.
bob h
Cheney has a vaguely posthumous look about him. Maybe he realizes he has little time left to dish this crap out.
El Cid
@bob h: His bucket list?
Dennis-SGMM
@bob h:
I’d guess that no longer having access to transfusions of baby’s blood from Iraq is affecting Cheney’s health.
Davis X. Machina
How many people has Obama killed?
That was easy.
someguy
I’m glad that we have a WH press secretary who is willing to sneer at and mock all the people whose politics I disagree with. It should be a fun couple years singling people out for destruction who really deserve it. I have to agree with Newsweek – it’s time we silence a lot of people in this country. They just shouldn’t be allowed to talk because they are so counterproductive. We could start with the guy from AIG who is going to testify today. He should have to just sit there and take it. Or like Grassley said, take an alternative path.
Comrade Stuck
Shorter someguy = Liberals who fight back skeer meh.
Dennis-SGMM
Now, now, I’m sure that he’ll have a perfectly good explanation of why AIG is paying $135,000,000 of our money in retention bonuses to the people who helped AIG lose $108 billion in 2008.
sarah
for everyone who didn’t bother to read or watch the full quote in context… Gibbs referred to Cheney and Rush as members of the "republican cabal." I think the cabal part is what everyone got so ferklempt about.
drunken hausfrau
How many Al Gore insults could we google from the Bush/Cheney years — or, rather, how long would it take to compile them and send them to Reid? Does anyone have that kind of time to waste?
someguy
Comrade, you misapprehend me. I’m all about teh nihilism these days, and cheering it on.
Ella in NM
Status? I’d say the little weenies are scared shitless of him, that’s all.
It’s all about balls, as in the ones they lack. They’ve seen the wad hanging down the leg of Cheney’s pants. They’re in total awe and fear.
bob h
Cheney said that he’d “pay to see” a debate between Rush and Obama
I’d pay to see a debate between John Stewart and Rush, but Rush doesn’t have the balls or the intellect to do it.
JSpencer
Christ, I know this is redundant as hell, but it can’t be said often enough: Dick Cheney is a fucking idiot… not to mention a monster with all kinds of blood on his hands. If there is a hereafter with any sort of karmic accountability I damned well wouldn’t want to be him.
sab
I don’t want to sound too much like Bob Somerby, but was any respect given to Al Gore by anyone in the press from 2000 until he won a Nobel? He was a two term vice-president, and a multi-term Senator before that (Cheney was only a Congress critter.)