When Dick Cheney surfaced on Feb. 15 long enough for an interview
with Fox News eminence Brit Hume -- an event that CNN’s Jack Cafferty
promptly likened to “Bonnie interviewing Clyde” -- the vice
presidential spin emerged from a timeworn bag of political tricks.
Cheney took responsibility. Whatever that means.
The New York Times website swiftly made its top headline “Cheney
Takes Full Responsibility for Shooting Hunter.” Just before Fox News
Channel aired interview segments at length, the summary from anchor
Hume told viewers that Cheney had accepted “full responsibility for
the incident.” Hours later, the Washington Post’s front-page story
led this way: “Vice President Cheney accepted full responsibility
yesterday...”
Ironically -- while news outlets kept using the phrase “full
responsibility” -- the transcript of the interview posted on
FoxNews.com shows that Cheney never used any form of the word
“responsibility.”
Whatever their exact words, the politicians who can’t avoid
acknowledging culpability are often the beneficiaries of excessive
media plaudits for supposedly owning up to what they’ve done wrong.
But those politicians rarely do more than just what the spin doctor
ordered.
It’s not brave or even forthright for an official to express the
contrition that seems advisable from a public-relations standpoint.
When a convicted defendant voices remorse just before sentencing, the
statement is often viewed as little more than a ploy dictated by
circumstance. But when a politician ostensibly “takes responsibility”
in the court of public opinion, much of the media coverage attaches
great significance to an essentially hollow statement that is a
transparent effort to extinguish a scandal-fueled firestorm.
In almost every instance when a politician “takes responsibility”
with great fanfare, there’s no penalty attached to the proclamation.
Across the terrain of political media, the I-take-responsibility
maneuver is the equivalent of a hit-and-run driver offering an
over-the-shoulder yell of “Sorry about that” while speeding away from
a grisly scene.
On July 30, 2003 -- several months after the occupation of Iraq began
-- President Bush held a news conference while U.S. forces continued
to search in vain for weapons of mass destruction. High up in a
front-page story, the New York Times reported that Bush “took
responsibility for the first time for an assertion in his State of
the Union address about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program that turned
out to be based on questionable intelligence.”
Bush told reporters: “I take personal responsibility for everything I
say, of course. I also take responsibility for making decisions on
war and peace. And I analyzed a thorough body of intelligence, good,
solid, sound intelligence that led me to come to the conclusion that
it was necessary to remove Saddam Hussein from power.”
In that instance, as in so many others, the president’s declaration
about taking responsibility was nothing more than hot air for
inflated rhetoric -- a dodge to divert attention from indefensible
actions and evident deceptions.
Last year, on Sept. 13 at the White House, the president said:
“Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all
levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government
didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility.” Policies
during the five months since then have compounded the
administration’s deadly negligence in response to Hurricane Katrina,
underscoring the diversionary significance of the
I-take-responsibility scam.
When Brit Hume and Dick Cheney did their Fox trot, they were
performing the kind of spectacle we’ve seen many times on television.
Network correspondents and powerful politicians know the boundaries
and the steps. Their footwork may look simple, but it’s fancy and
well-practiced. Contrary to pretense, the probing journalist doesn’t
probe too much, and the forthcoming politician merely hunkers down
with a new twist.
And so it goes: Whether the media uproar has to do with a quail hunt,
or lethal negligence in connection with a hurricane, or chronic
deception for a war, top officials may finally opt to “take
responsibility.” But that’s nothing more than a propaganda technique
for those who view lying as an essential means of governance.
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Norman Solomon’s latest book is “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits
Keep Spinning Us to Death.” For information, go to:
www.WarMadeEasy.com