The Untold Story of the Cheney 'Quagmire' Video
When the C-SPAN producer toiling in obscurity last month reached for the tape, he had no clue how juicy a nugget he had unearthed. The tape was labeled simply, "Life and Career of Dick Cheney"; dated April 15, 1994.
When he found it in the archives, the producer was just looking for something mildly interesting to help fill the 12-hour Cheney marathon planned by C-SPAN 3. The "Life and Career of Dick Cheney," produced for C-SPAN's "American Profile" series, seemed like a good bet for the marathon; after all, those interviews were personality-based and less wonky, letting viewers get a real feel for Dick and his wife/political partner, Lynne.
But instead of love and marriage, the "Life and Career" tape offered up a much younger looking Cheney saying that a U.S. invasion to capture Baghdad and topple Saddam Hussein would be, well, a quagmire.
At the time of the interview 13 years ago, Cheney was the ex-defense secretary, camped out at the American Enterprise Institute and contemplating a run for president. Asked why he didn't think U.S. forces should have gone on to Baghdad during the first Persian Gulf War, he asked rhetorically, "How many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?" He added, "It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq."
The now famous "quagmire" tape, which has gotten over half a million views on YouTube, may well have remained buried in the archives for another decade (and doesn't Cheney wish it had!) if it hadn't been for that one C-SPAN producer, an affable young Irishman named Emmanuel Touhey.
Touhey didn't have time to review the entire hour-long tape before airing it, so he had no idea he was about to spark a firestorm on the Internet. And, at first, no one seemed to notice.
The Cheney tape re-aired for the first time since 1994 on July 11, 2007. But it wasn't until C-SPAN aired the interview again on August 9 (on the same channel, at the same time) that the blogosphere noticed.
As far as we know, the Cheney remarks on Iraq were first noticed by the site Grand Theft Country. When it quickly became an Internet phenomenon, Touhey was surprised. He said people have been calling C-SPAN over the past week asking when the network plans to air the Cheney segment again. (It doesn't, for the record.)
"I was quietly pleased with myself that I'd found a gem, however by accident," said Touhey, who, after nine years with C-SPAN is leaving next week to become a producer for The Diane Rehm Show. "I'm gleeful just from the perspective that it's getting a lot of attention. Any time C-SPAN 3 gets a lot of attention, I'm happy."
Asked what changed the vice president's mind about invading Iraq between 1994 and 2003, Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said she was not authorized to comment.
She did, however, direct us to an interview that ABC News conducted with Cheney in February of this year in which Cheney was asked how his views had changed from 1991, when he also spoke of military action in Iraq as a "quagmire."
"Well, I stand by what I said in '91," Cheney told ABC. "But look what's happened since then -- we had 9/11."
Now, about that faceless voice in the Cheney "quagmire" video -- it belongs to Bruce Collins, the corporate vice president and general counsel of C-SPAN who held the same title when he interviewed the former defense secretary and future vice president way back in 1994.
Collins shared with us a funny anecdote about that interview.
When he showed up at Cheney's office, he said the future Veep asked, "How much time do you need -- one, two minutes?" Collins explained it was an hour-long interview.
Cheney grumbled that he hadn't planned on that much time. Collins said the interview was for C-SPAN's "American Profile" series, which would give the audience a chance to learn more about Dick Cheney the man, where he comes from, how he thinks, how he lives.
"You mean, touchy feely?" Cheney replied, according to Collins.
"This is an opportunity to go beyond policy," Collins recalled saying.
To which Cheney growled, "Well, you know I'm a policy kinda guy."
And there you have it: Dick Cheney is not a touchy-feely kinda guy.
Watch the video above:
The hypocrisy is staggering in this video! And with over a million youtube views in total over a week it is clearly growing in importance.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet this was the KNOWN position of Bush Sr between 1992 and the late 1990’s. Bush Sr. and his ex-staff had been quoted many times saying it, but neocons say "9/11 changed everything", well yeah, but not the reality of Iraq after a Saddam ouster!! But the use of these quotes did not seem to get much use or traction by the Democrats in 2004. Oh wait, Kerry thought the war just needed to be managed BETTER but that it would be OK and we would make Iraq safe for democracy. This type of quote would not do much good in advancing the “novel” Kerry approach.
If a picture is worth a 1000 words, then a moving picture must be worth 10,000 words. I wonder if it is on your personal computer and under your control, that it might be worth 100,000 words!! This youtube video blew me away AND I knew the old written quotes by Bush Sr.
The power advantage of video and youtube moving pictures over the written media format JUST seems staggering to me. I suspect the written main stream media is going to be eclipsed in politics in 2008. In fact I wonder if it has not already happened in the last several Presidential elections. No one pays any attention to written words of candidates or campaign platforms. In fact I defy you to find written position statements of candidates that actually say something of substance, other than: “It is morning in America and I believe in America and paraphrasing, We are Americans and great!!” It is all in the “debates” and video sound bites by the MSM. Thinking back I bet one has to go back to the seventies, maybe earlier, when the campaign platform debates at the National Republican or Democrat conventions actually meant anything. No one pays any attention to them because they are so emotionally nebulous.
But not moving pictures with sound.
Additionally with youtube's flexibility and agility and quickness to respond and to discover, I also wonder if the TV main stream media will also be left in the dust. Probably NOT because it is still hard to filter out the junk, even with Google; BUT on some things, it looks like only CNN and C-span are able to keep up. The networks are dinosaurs reinforcing the status quo. In any case thank goodness for Emmanuel Touhey!! We need to give him a medal for finding a putting on the air this 1994 C-Span video find on Cheney and his views on the Iraq war.
How about an Emmanuel Touhey and Ron Paul for President on a joint ticket in 2008!!
Denis in Missouri
PS
Has anyone commented on the similarity in the names Emmanuel Touhey and Ellsworth M. Toohey, a newspaper columnist in the Ayn Rand novel Fountainhead?