Dick Cheney: Coward

Has there ever been a public figure more fearful of the public than Vice President Dick Cheney?

The man is a coward. Sure, he's willing to speak his mind — but only if he is in front of a carefully screened audience. And even then this timid man refuses to allow any questions to be asked. Is he really so frightened of getting tough, probing questions from his fellow ideologues at the Heritage Foundation? And when he's delivering a speech largely written by fellows of the American Enterprise Institute, isn't it a bit redundant to also deliver that speech to the fellows of the American Enterprise Institute?

Cheney's fear of all but the friendliest audiences is so blatant that even Tom Friedman has noticed. In today's New York Times Friedman writes:

Mr. Cheney was speaking to 200 invited guests at the conservative Heritage Foundation — and even they were not allowed to ask any questions. Great. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein issue messages from their caves through Al Jazeera, and Mr. Cheney issues messages from his bunker through Fox. …

Out of fairness, my newspaper feels obligated to run such stories. But I wish we had said to the V.P.: If you're going to give a major speech on Iraq to an audience limited to your own supporters and not allow any questions, that's not news — that's an advertisement, and you should buy an ad on the Op-Ed page.

Dana Milbank, writing in Tuesday's Washington Post, likewise notes that:

Vice President Cheney, who almost never grants newspaper interviews, has been a regular on talk radio and Sunday television shows where his answers are unedited.

Aw, poor little vice president, scared of the big mean newspaper reporters.

Milbank's observation comes in an article titled "Bush Courts Regional Media," detailing the White House's effort to bypass skeptical reporters from the larger, national newspapers and the national TV networks by granting interviews to smaller, regional broadcasters and papers.

It's an old strategy — one Hollywood has used for years. What else can you do when you're in charge of promoting a Gigli or a Swept Away? When Roger Ebert and Janet Maslin and all the other top-tier critics have savaged your movie you find (or buy) a favorable blurb wherever you can.

Don't be surprised if President Bush soon grants an exclusive interview to David Manning of The Ridgefield Press.