LYNN CHENEY IN CNN SITDOWN, SLAPDOWN: DO YOU WANT AMERICA TO WIN?Fri Oct 27 2006 18:29:49 ETLynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, took on CNN Friday evening during an interview with anchorman Wolf Blitzer.Transcript:
CHENEY: You made a point last night of a man who had a bookstore in London where radical islamists gathered. Who was in Afghanistan when the Taliban were there. Who went to Pakistan. You know, I think that you might be a little careful before you declare this as a person with clean hands.
WOLF: You are receiving to the CNN "Broken Government" special. This is the one John King reported on last night.
CHENEY: Right there, Wolf. 'Broken Government.' What kind of stance is that? Here we are. We are a country where we have been mightily challenged over the past six years. We've been through 9/11, we've been through Katrina. The president and the vice president inherited a recession. We are in a country where the economy is healthy. That's not broken. This government has acted very well. We have tax cuts responsible for the healthy economy. We are a country that was attacked five years ago. We haven't been attacked since. What this government has done is effective. That's not broken government. So, you know, I shouldn't let media bias surprise me, but I worked at CNN once. I watched a program last night. WOLF: You worked on CROSSFIRE.
CHENEY: ...And i was troubled.
WOLF: All right. Well that was probably the purpose, to get people to think. To get people to discuss these issues. Because --
CHENEY: Well, all right. Wolf, I'm here to talk about my book. But if you want to talk about distortion --
WOLF: We'll talk about your book.
CHENEY: Right, but what is CNN doing? Running terrorist tape of terrorists shooting Americans. I mean, I thought [Rep.] Duncan Hunter asked you a very good question, and you didn't answer it. Do you want us to win? WOLF: The answer of course is we want the United States to win. We are Americans. There's no doubt about that.
CHENEY: Then why are you running terrorist propaganda?
WOLF: Well all do respect, this is not terrorist propaganda.
CHENEY: Oh, wolf.
WOLF: This is reporting the news. Which is what we do, we are not partisan.
CHENEY: Where did you get the film?
WOLF: We got the film, look, this is an issue that has been widely discussed. This is an issue we reported on extensively. We make no apologies for showing that. That was a very carefully-considered decision why we did that. And I think, I think --
CHENEY: Well I think it's shocking.
WOLF: If you are a serious journalist, you want to report the news. Sometimes the news is good, sometimes the news isn't so good.
CHENEY: But wolf, there's a difference between news and terrorist propaganda. Cheney also took on Virginia senate challenger Jim Webb.
JIM WEBB: There's nothing that's been in in of my novels that in my view, hasn't been either illuminating surroundings are defining a character or moving a plot. I'm a serious writer. I mean, we can go and read Lynne Cheney's lesbian love scenes if you want to get graphic on stuff.
CHENEY: Jim Webb is full of baloney. I have never written anything sexually explicit. His novels are full of, um, sexual explicit reference to sex. Sexually explicit references to, well, I don't want my grandchildren to turn on the television set. This morning Imus was reading from the novels. And it's triple X-rated.END
