Running Mate's Role, or Attack Dog?
Reported by Melanie - September 1, 2004 -
Rich Lowry (National Review) and Ellis Henican (Newsday) held their daily discussion today (September 1, 2004) with Linda Vester on Dayside. Today's discussion was about Dick Cheney and his speech tonight at the RNC.
After praise for Arnold Schwarzenegger: "Such an asset to the GOP;" they're "giddy;" "very, very appealing;" and, it was a "good night for the party," they got down to business.
Henican said "this is a Vice President whose approval ratings even among Republicans is way below 50%," and that "we tried to humanize him a little last week with the whole gay daughter stuff" but he's got a "long way to go.
Vester pointed out that she'd "spoken to him" and she thinks "the whole glowering Cheney thing is a caricature of who he is" and that he's a very serious guy. Lowry said "it's absolutely a caricature" and that Cheney's "always been human and had daughters and a family, for a long time."
Vester said, "you also have to conceed he's a 'no BS' kind of guy" and he's not "Mister sort of light and fluffy guy." Henican responded that still, the American people don't connect with him but that Henican "really likes his policies, but he's not an appealing person." Lowry said Cheney's been "made a figure of hate" and the "stuffing's been beaten out of him for three years." Lowry predicted Cheney would be "very commanding" tonight and that "he'll fill the traditional" Vice President's role at a convention, of taking "a little more harsh and attacking sort of approach to John Kerry."
Then Vester said: "Which is the running mate's role."
COMMENT: Yesterday on Fox News Live, around ll:00 a.m. ET, Jamie Colby referred to John Edwards as an "attack dog." Later in the same show I was in another room but heard a male, Rick Folbaum I believe, also refer to Edwards as an "attack dog." (We News Hounds have heard this term time and time again in reference to Democrats.) This is precisely the kind of thing this blog is trying to show: that when Fox News speaks about a Republican, Dick Cheney, going after John Kerry, "it's the running mate's role," and he'll "fill the traditional" VP role, and take a "little more harsh and attacking sort of approach." When Fox News speaks about John Edwards (or other Democrats) going after George Bush, Edwards is an "attack dog." Biased. Partisan. Pro-Bush.
Also, if Henican is supposed to be the "liberal" on this panel, why does he say "we tried to humanize" Cheney last week and that he "really likes his policies?" Another Fox tact is that their "liberals" aren't liberals at all. They don't fight to get the liberal-progressive-democrat (whatever you want to call it) message through, so in that way too it's kept from the Fox audience.
