Bob Schieffer: Journalist No More

Bob Schieffer will be interviewing Dick Cheney for the last time as VP. What he has to say about his relationship to the Vice President says more than anything else what is so incredibly wrong with the state of what is considered ‘Main Stream Media” in the United States today:

“None of us ever know what tomorrow brings but it does make me feel a little nostalgic thinking back to those other days when he was thirty two and I was just a little bit older,” CBS News’ Bob Schieffer said of Dick Cheney in an interview with CBSNews.com. “It was different world, a lot has happened since then. So, I will enjoy seeing him when he comes here just from a personal standpoint….He was very open and forthcoming(when he worked for Rumsfeld during the Ford Administration), he was almost a de facto press secretary. I would speak to him sometimes as much as twice a day. I was the White House correspondent in those days.”

Bob Shieffer Loves Dick Cheney

Close buddies, much, Bob? Did you go shooting or play tennis with him also?

Journalists are observers and reporters. Observers. Not friends, companions, tipsters, conduits for lies and other blather from the Administration or shills. Observers.

We all know that something really really bad happened to the coverage of the Bush/Cheney Administration on 2001. I’m going to put out there that the American People have been ill-served by people we thought were giving us the straight poop for probably 40 years.

Who’s left? Who is out there who still is trying to do their job?

Helen Thomas…the frankly elderly journalistic ‘battleaxe’, who got sent to the back of the room(I’m amazed Perino or whoever it was did not put a chair out in the hallway for her instead), much to the shock and chagrin of all the rest of the DC Press Corps, who actually understand her stature and tremendous contribution in terms of trying to keep them all honest and professional.

And then there is Dan Rather, who frankly is being kept honest because he got whacked by network execs. He’s got, as they say, ‘a dog in this fight’ – his reputation and self-esteem.

Bob Schieffer ‘jumped the shark’ with this one. Time to pass in your card, Mr. Schieffer – we now know you as the shill that you are.