Jon Karl & ABC Give Cheney A Sunday Valentine

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/02/14/jon-karl-abc-give-cheney-a-sunday-valentine/
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Sunday morning (Valentine’s Day, 2010), Jonathan Karl auditioned to replace George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s Sunday morning show, This Week. Karl’s exclusive “get” for his host debut was former Vice President Dick Cheney who Karl last interviewed on December 16, 2008 – a month before Barack Obama took the helm as President and Joe Biden replaced Mr. Cheney.

In that unremarkable December 16th interview, Jonathan Karl never once mentioned the myriad Constitutional scholars and legal experts vociferously accusing Cheney of impeachable criminal offenses. Karl never mentioned the accusations of Cheney’s involvement in Extraordinary Renditions in which kidnapped individuals were hauled off to secret prisons and tortured without mercy. Karl never mentioned accusations of Cheney thwarting Americans’ rights to privacy through illegal wiretaps. Karl never mentioned Cheney’s unprecedented executive power, his penchant for secrecy, and his lies and distortions that led to the Iraq War.

Instead he again gave Cheney a platform to retool his credibility and extol the virtues of his Vice Presidency. Karl even went so far as to lob a softball at Cheney to humanize him on an issue the Progressive community has long supported – overturning the military policy of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ When asked if Cheney, a former Secretary of Defense, would end ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ Cheney replied:

“Twenty years ago, the military were strong advocates of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ when I was Secretary of Defense. I think things have changed significantly since then.”

Karl’s softballs aside, had he rightfully used this interview to take Cheney to task on specific accusations from experts and scholars, Karl may have achieved a new found respect as a reporter. But he didn’t. Like the corporate hacks before him, Karl towed the corporate line. He was dismissive of the public trust and disparaging of the best traditions of journalism by not digging for the truth.
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Fuck you Karl
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BY the way - was Liz(ard) Cheney on Fox yesterday?