At what point do we call them the family of mass intimidation and
simply stop playing into the Cheney clan's tired old terror tactics?
Liz is the latest. Cheney child number one made the headlines
this week, with an innuendo-laced video questioning the loyalty of
lawyers who represent Guantanamo detainees. "The Al Qaeda 7: Who are
they?" Asks the voice on a video released by Cheney's supposedly
nonprofit, non-partisan new hit squad. (They call it an advocacy group?)
Liz is playing from a battered old family play book. Shortly
after September 11, it was her mother out there, accusing people of lack
of patriotism. Lynne Cheney teamed up with Senator Joseph Lieberman to
release a report which accused colleges and universities of being the
"weak link in America's response" and naming 117 professors and
students whom they called "short on patriotism" and "hostile to the US
and western Civilization"
Not to be outdone by his women, barely a month has passed between
2001 and today in which Darth Vader patriarch Dick Cheney didn't accuse
some Democrat or another of endangering the homeland. The former vice
president's training in bait and snitch dates back to the 60s when when
he spied on Students for A Democratic Society meetings, jotting down
names for his then-boss Donald Rumsfeld in an attempt to cut government
funding for public colleges.
Teachers, lawyers, politicians, in case it's not entirely clear,
the Cheney's aren't too hot on the independent professions of a free
democracy, but they are red hot for the contemporary equivalent of
red-baiting and they've gotten it down pat, how to harness the money
media to do their bidding.
After all, it's thanks to the media it works. Even concerted
attacks on campus progressives, lawyers, and political candidates don't
successfully discredit their targets without the help of the media who
carry the allegations and innuendos. Facts be damned, it's the
accusations that do the work: intimidating scholars, chilling freedom of
expression, driving lawyers and politicians out of the line of fire.
The media - like FOX - who went ahead this week and obediently
printed the names of the Cheney-tagged "7" place the dead horse heads
in the beds. Without them, the Cheney mob are simply name callers.
It's time the media started greeting Cheneyisms with the reaction
they deserve. Snore. And most important of all, silence.