Stalin Would Be Proud

by emptywheel

There is, IMO, just one "journalist" who is more of a party shill than Judy Miller. As I pointed out the other day, Judy never propagated Administration claims of an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection, even though she had long reported on both Iraq and Al Qaeda. The job of claiming such connections fell to the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, who literally just repackaged Dougie Feith lies and published them as if they were true.

Now Sidney Blumenthal reveals that Dick Cheney has taken the unusual step of selecting a biographer. And he picked none other than Hayes.

For this Herculean task, Cheney has passed over every single professional historian and instead selected Stephen Hayes, a writer for the neoconservative organ, the Weekly Standard. "I'm not a historian," Hayes told US News, modestly.

As Blumenthal points out, the choice says much about Cheney's understanding of power and history.

In his naming of a propagandist as his biographer, Cheney demonstrates his will to power. For him, history, like the political present, will be subject to his control. Just as he has contempt for the objective standards of intelligence, he has disdain for the methods of historians. His intention in selecting a lowly ideological publicist to record his notable life is to create a parallel universe that true believers can embrace against potentially disillusioning facts that might emerge. Cheney has decided to fortify his reputation through a campaign of disinformation far into the future. For historians, however, this episode will be a small but telling part of the Cheney story.

I'd go even further than Blumenthal--to question why Cheney feels the need to do so, and what it suggests about his plan for power in the near term.  It may be, after all, that Cheney is taking this unusual step because his heart is just one wayward quail shot away from its expiration date. Give his health, Cheney may not want to wait until he leaves office. It may be that he wants to pre-empt anything that might arise if Democrats gain power, such as indictments or impeachment.

But it reminds me of nothing so much as the Communist era practice (though all authoritarian governments do it) of reinventing history with every change of power, canonizing each successive leader with a new set of statues and street names, attempting to obscure those who had gone before. By asking a propagandist to write a biography of him now, Cheney seems to be attempting to mystify his own power in the short term, to create a fiction he can use to further cement his own power.

Luckily, Hayes is nothing if not easy to mock.

Comments

[John Casper]

Great catch as per usual emptywheel.
I suspect that "selecting a biographer," is DeadEye's way of acknowledging that he's "circling the drain."

[Semanticleo]

Actually, it is quite customary to showp for friendly bio ghostwriters. What is shameless is when a formerly respected journalist (Woodweird) selects Larry King as interviewer knowing full well the softball pitcher will merely scamper over the
Plame matter and intentionally walk the batter.

[oldtree]

it will be great fun comparing the "statements" in the feelgood biophony
and the criminal record

[windje]

History is always written wrong,
and so always needs to be rewritten

Santayana's corollary

[jwest]

You expected David Corn?

[emptypockets]

The kindest act history can do for Dick Cheney is to forget him -- any remembrance is bound to be unpleasant.

At least picking a no-credibility non-historian as his biographer may pre-empt a real historian from being assigned to him posthumously, and may discourage real writers from wanting to trod that ground too soon.

[eric]

History will judge Cheney as it does everyone else, unpredictability. I think the relevant discussion here is what the schedule will be. That it's being announced now and not after he's out of office suggests that the release date for the biography should fall right around September 2008, just in time for the next presidential election.

[emptywheel]

eric

Yes, that's one of the important points. I wondered if Cheney is contemplating a presidential run, in spite of all his denials.

[Aztrias]

Ultimately History favors winners. Caesar wrote his propaganda describing the campaign in Gaul. Had he lost, filling Rome with spin and statues wouldn't have mattered. Caesar won Gaul and it was stable province for Rome while Cheney's adventures in Iraq are a disaster for Cheney's American Empire. The USA will have no "syriaq" province.

Cheney wants to create a parallel universe for his place in history. I suspect his bio. will be a very useful Rosetta stone for historians to understand the depth of his delusions.

Cheney is Caligula: One "sick [email protected]#k", only without the "mojo".

[jonnybutter]

I find it oddly (and only slightly) comforting that Dick chose - probably had to choose - such an obvious lickspittle - Hayes is basically part of Cheney's propaganda 'detail'. If only he could've chosen himself de facto! But Hayes is a good choice for him - calm, good on teevee, a 'nice guy'. The timing is strange. The whole Cheney phenom is strange. Somebody's potato has been bakin' a little too long...

Somewhere on the internets there was a contest this weekend to predict the name for the book, and I just thought of mine: 'At This Juncture' (I bet it really does end up being called something like that! Something understated, all the more portentious for being so - and also very 'official'-sounding: pure dick).

[Jon]

If we're naming his biography then I'm going with, "Right from the Beginning."