Constructive Criticism to Hugh Hewitt on Interviewing Liberals

Have less fun…Get their “facts” revealed

Hugh Hewitt interviewed Helen Thomas and Lawrence O'Donnell February 15, 2006. See http://www.radioblogger.com/; most listeners thought Hugh did a great job. His judicial temperament was great always cool and speaking as a gentleman.


I better liked Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Lawrence O'Donnell February 15, 2006 , Regarding O’Donnell’s Huffington Post Was Cheney Drunk? which included “Every lawyer I've talked to assumes Cheney was too drunk to talk to the cops after the shooting.”

HH: “Larry, did you...what lawyers did you talk to that assumed Cheney was
drunk?”
LO: “Oh, my brothers are all lawyers. I must have talked to a dozen
lawyers yesterday, including a former U.S. attorney...”

Hugh was masterful. If O’Donnell felt free to question Cheney’s integrity in what he was saying, why not question O’Donnell’s integrity. Did he really speak to lawyers who told him that? Who were they? O’Donnell would not reveal his sources, and backpedaled quite a bit, claiming later to having spoke to one brother, six lawyers in one day.

I have some constructive criticism for the Helen Thomas interview. I think many people would take umbrage of being asked “did you vote for Gore or Kerry” or “do you hate George W. Bush?” I’d prefer for him to get on the record their view and understanding of recent history. What they think the “facts” are that they base their views on.

Some suggested questions.

02-15thomas.mp3
HELEN THOMAS: The damage was to their reputation for secrecy.

Suggestion:
A vice-president has the right to meet with citizens in private, even oil company executives, to gather information to better formulate policy, doesn’t he?

Follow-up:
Didn’t Cheney win in the Court case dismissing the lawsuit that sought to force Vice President Cheney to turn over records of private meetings his office held in 2001 to shape the administration's energy policy? Didn’t Judge A. Raymond Randolph write for the unanimous U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that “The president must be free to seek confidential information from many sources, both inside the government and outside"?

HELEN THOMAS: I don't like the way he's operated, leaking classified documents, defending torture, in fact, working very hard against any ban on torture. I don't know if you saw the photographs today that were first shown on the Australian TV...

Suggestion: Did you consider, not the assault, but just the sleep deprivation
techniques used at Waco on David Koresh and the Branch Davidians torture?

Follow-up:
Didn’t the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms 51 day siege at Waco, Texas, included such psy-war tactics as sleep deprivation of the inhabitants of the community by means of all-night broadcasts of recordings of the screams of rabbits being slaughtered? Do you consider that torture?

HELEN THOMAS: ...where are the ties to al Qaeda?

Suggestion:
The Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was injured as we overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan. Where was al-Zarqawi when the US invaded Iraq?

Follow-up:
Do you think, in a police state such as Saddam’s Iraq, al-Zarqawi was in Iraq with Saddam’s knowledge and consent?

HELEN THOMAS: I think that he had...there were facts, they've cherry picked the facts, they wanted a war.

Suggestion:
How is what George W. Bush said different from President Bill Clinton December 1998 speech to the country when Clinton order military force in Iraq? http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html

Follow-up:
Didn’t President Clinton say in December 1998 “[The] “mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.”

Didn’t President Clinton say in December 1998 “
- “the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future.”
- “And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. … and he will use them.”
- “Because we're acting today, it is less likely that we will face these dangers in the future.”

HELEN THOMAS: Should they be the grateful dead? A hundred thousand dead? Wounded? Should all of the people we have killed, Americans, dead?

Suggested question:
There were reports that 50,000 Iraqi children prematurely died each year due to the United Nations authorized economic sanctions? Do you believe that 600,000 children died in Iraq due to the UN sanctions?

Follow-up:
The UN oil-for-food program was designed to provide to the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people. How do understand how the money was used?