It used to seem like weathermen/weatherwomen were the only ones who could be wrong half the time and still keep their jobs. Well, I'm now beginning to think that same rationale applies to the reporters at Politico - specifically, Kyle D. Cheney.
Cheney is the Politico reporter who started a media meltdown over a story he filed last week on Republican presidential frontrunner Ben Carson. In his original article, Cheney wrote that Carson admitted “fabricating” the claim that he was offered a scholarship at West Point, as well as applying and being recruited to the reputable military academy. As well all know, Cheney fudged the article and Politico had to "correct" the original article (though they never actually called it a "correction.")
Despite his last name, if anyone ever had any doubt where Cheney's political stance may lie (even after the Carson hit-piece) or how he truly feels about police, all they would have to do is refer to an almost laughable and over-the-top "op-ed" he wrote in 2004.
Joel B. Pollak at Breitbart dug it up. At the time, Cheney was editor of a newspaper at Boston University when he decided to join a protest as a demonstrator. (Okay, first, if you are a true journalist, you aren't supposed to be joining protests as a protestor. A true reporter with journalistic integrity observes and writes without bias, something many journalists fail doing to this day. How did Cheney ever get a gig at Politico to begin with?)
In his op-ed, Cheney starts off by saying there aren't enough words to "describe the assault on First Amendment rights that I, along with thousands of others, suffered during the Republican National Convention in New York City." And that's just the opening paragraph. The second paragraph pretty much lays Cheney's bias out there:
In this era when doomsday scenarios constantly emanate from the lips of the Bushies, when Jefferson, Washington and Adams have taken a back seat to fearing the Axis of Evil, we can ill-afford to forget for even a moment the vision of liberty and freedom of expression that our forefathers mapped out for us in the Constitution.
Ahh yes. Axis of Evil. Hearing those three words reminds me of a time when other countries actually feared America and we didn’t bow our heads to or negotiate with our sworn enemies… it’s almost sentimental in a way.
The NYPD and the justice system also took some heat from Cheney. He wrote:
… the New York City Police Department and its henchmen in the justice system all came down with a collective case of Constitutional amnesia during the GOP convention. Even more appalling was the steady stream of outright lies and unmitigated praise for the law enforcement effort spewing from the bowels of Madison Square Garden throughout the convention housed inside.
Then it really got silly. Cheney described his lock-up experience as something similar to being held in Guantanamo for 12 hours, what he called, “Guantanamo on the Hudson":
Pier 57 is a warehouse along the Westside highway specifically reconstructed to hold prisoners during the convention. There, males and females were separated, our property confiscated and we were thrown 50 at a time into barbed wire cages that could barely hold 25.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told The New York Times that most of the detainees were held for 90 minutes, and that none were there longer than eight hours and all had immediate access to toilet facilities and drinking water. Does Roget have a list of words for liar?
I was in Guantanamo for 12 hours.
Throughout his op-ed, Cheney whined about “motor oil-drenched concrete floors,” that some protesters claimed “their clothes tested positive for asbestos,” and “the only thing dirtier than the Republican invective was the slick and grimy prison floor on which I was forced to sleep after being arrested."
Again, how did Cheney get a job at Politico? Despite the huge flub of the fabricated Ben Carson story and obvious political bias Cheney exhibited early in his career, if this is the kind of reporter Politico hires (and still keeps around), it doesn’t speak highly of them.
There’s a reason why Donald Trump doesn’t deal with Politico, and Cheney helped prove his point.
