Thursday, January 25, 2007

Cheney: voice of the lunatic fringe

Many others have said just about everything that needs to be said about the spine-chilling Blitzer/Cheney interview. (See, for example, Digby.)

I did find this amusing, though: Cheney insists in the interview that, as the CNN headline goes, "Talk of blunders in Iraq is 'hogwash'", and that the administration has lost none of its credibility over its handling of the war. In one of the remarkably few onlines polls I've ever found to be worth reading in any way, CNN.com asks its readers today whether "perceived" blunders in Iraq have hurt the administration's credibility. 91% of respondents say "yes".

91%.

Apparently Cheney speaks for 9% of the population. (Or at least of the CNN.com-reading population, which is arguably--very arguably--a bit more liberal than the population at large.) This is still too many people, by my reckoning, but it is, at least according to this classic post by Bob Harris at TMW, less than the percentage of the American population that believes that the US should have a royal family, or that would be willing to eat a live rat on reality TV.

Now if only there were some way that we could ignore Cheney as safely as we ignore American monarchists...

1 comment:

M.J. O'Brien said...

It seems like Cheney is ultimately trying to persuade himself more than anyone else. On some level, he must realize the futility of his arguments, but he's deeply invested in his own final vindication. Maybe he'll be the last true believer, long after Laura Bush and Barney have given up on Dubyah's war.