Now this is some good stuff. Hugh Hewitt interviewing Lawrence O’Donnell
HH: Hi, Lawrence. Welcome back.
LO: Thank you.
HH: Good to have you on. Lawrence O’Donnell, yesterday you posted at the Huffington Post about Dick Cheney, Was Cheney Drunk? Did you come up with the headline by the way?
LO: Yes, I did. That’s the first time I’ve come up with my own headline. I think it was a very simple question that needed to be asked, that now has been asked, and the Vice President’s answer is that I had one beer at lunch. When I raised this question, many people thought it was absolutely outrageous to even consider the possibility that Dick Cheney would have any trace of alchohol in his system. We now know that he did, and we have his word that it was one beer. I don’t know what his word is worth on this subject. It isn’t worth much to me, because he did everything he possibly could to avoid us being able to know the truth about that.
HH: Let me read the two paragraphs from yesterday’s post at the Huffington Post. “How do we know there was no alcohol? Cheney refused to talk to local authorities until the next day. No point in giving him a breathalyzer then. Every lawyer I’ve talked to assumes Cheney was too drunk to talk to the cops after the shooting. The next question for the White House should be, was Cheney drunk? I have never gone hunting with ultra-rich Republicans on a Saturday afternoon, but I have seen them tailgating at Ivy League football games, so it’s hard for me to believe that any of their Saturday lunches are alcohol free.” Now first off, 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…
HH: Who would that be?
LO: I’m not going to tell you who I talked to, Hugh. Of course I talked to a bunch of lawyers. It doesn’t matter.
HH: Wait. Why should I believe you, Larry, if you don’t believe the Vice President?
LO: I’ll tell you. Let me make it clear to you. The person who suggested this question to me was not a lawyer. The person who suggested this question to me was an alcoholic, okay? That’s who suggested the question to me. And then I raised the question with other lawyers, and they said oh, yeah. That’s why you avoid the police after an accident. I ask you and your audience, Hugh, please tell me why did Ted Kennedy avoid the police after his accident on Chappaquiddick? Do you think alcohol and inebriation had something to do with it?
HH: Lawrence O’Donnell, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you talked to lawyers who told you that Cheney was too drunk to talk. I just don’t believe you.
LO: All right. Don’t. Don’t.
HH: Do you have any name you’ll give me that we can double check?
LO: Listen, Hugh, my entire family are lawyers. Every one of them, okay?
HH: Could I talk to one of them?
LO: No, it’s ridiculous. I talk to lawyers all the time.
HH: Did you talk to them yesterday?
LO: What…tell me what difference that makes? Let’s pretend…
HH: Well, you wrote it. I want to know about your…
LO: Let’s assume that I talked to no one. Let’s say that’s a lie.
HH: Okay. So you did lie about this?
LO: Say it’s a lie. I’m not saying…no.
HH: Did you make…
LO: No. You say it’s a lie. Now let’s proceed with the argument with that being a lie. So what?
HH: No, no. I’m just trying to get the facts, Lawrence. I would like to know…
LO: Yes, I talked to a bunch of lawyers.
HH: How many?
LO: Five, six.
HH: Five, six lawyers, and they were all your brothers?
LO: No.
HH: How may were your brothers?
LO: One.
HH: And who, besides your brother, did you talk…like entertainment laywers? Century City lawyers?
LO: No. Criminal lawyers.
HH: You talked to five criminal lawyers?
LO: Prosecutors and defense lawyers. That’s the only ones I know.
HH: Monday and Tuesday, you talked to five lawyers?
LO: On Monday, yeah.
HH: On Monday, just on Monday. Would you give me the name of one of them?
LO: No.
HH: Because none of them really said he was too drunk to talk, right?
LO: They all did.
HH: They all said, five lawyers, and you won’t let me talk to one of them?
LO: NO.
HH: Why?
LO: Because they’re guessing. They’re guessing. All we’re doing is guessing, because the Vice President forced us to guess, because he did exactly what Ted Kennedy did at Chappaquiddick. Exactly, Hugh. The same behavior. That’s what you do when you’re drunk. Now there’s other possible reasons why the Vice President did what he did. There are many other possible reasons, but he’s going to have to tell me what those are, and he’s going to have to make those believable. So far, I do not believe him…
HH: And I don’t believe you.
LO: You’ve got two approaches to this. You’ve got two approaches to it, Hugh. Either the Vice President was a moron on Saturday, or Karl Rove, who knew about it at 7:30PM, was also a moron. Or, they were both very smart. Now the smart version about the way they handled it is they had something to hide on Saturday night, and they successfully hid it. That’s the smart version.
HH: Lawrence, I want to go back to why you won’t tell me any of your five lawyers, or your brother. Why not just give us the names, so we can check to see if you just didn’t make this up?
LO: They’re not public figures, and it doesn’t matter. Read the post. It doesn’t matter. The lawyer part of it doesn’t matter.
HH: Will you give me their names off-air?
LO: No.
HH: So even if I agree not to broadcast it…
Much more where that came from at Radioblogger.
This guy is a complete and utter liar. First he got caught on the lawyer lies and then this:
HH: “Every lawyer I’ve talked to assumes Cheney was too drunk…” Let me ask, Howard Kurtz has criticized you today for writing this.
LO: No, he didn’t. Read it. Read it to your audience. He did not criticize me.
HH: Okay…
[…]
HH: Here we go. Lawrence O’Donnell gets a little tipsy in writing. How do we know there was no alcohol? Dick Cheney refused to talk to local authorities until the next day. No point in giving him a breathalyzer then. Every lawyer I’ve talked to assumes Cheney was too drunk to talk to cops after the shooting. Assumes, in italics, question mark…
LO: Yeah.
HH: Is that the new standard? That’s a criticism, Larry. I don’t know if you know that. That’s a criticism.
LO: Well, not for posting. Listen, Hugh, let me be very clear about something.
HH: Now that’s a criticism. You just said Howard didn’t criticize you. He did criticize you. Now your credibility is doubly damaged.
LO: All right. Good. Listen, there’s a different standard for posting. This is a posting on the Huffington Post, okay? I had no substantive facts on the matter of the Vice President’s sobriety. I would not have written what I wrote in the L.A. Times or the New York Times. I wouldn’t do that. But in a post on a website that is a blog, this is exactly the kind of question you’re supposed to ask, and you ask those questions so that the media will read that, it’ll provoke them to ask the questions, which is exactly what has happened. And yes, for Howie Kurtz, yes, I think assumptions are exactly the standard for website blogs, yes.
You catch that? He now say’s that he would never had written such an assertion (that Cheney was drunk) if he was writing for a newspaper but since he was posting on a blog, it’s a-ok.
These lefties kill me.
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Boy you folks are funny. Check the facts and you’ll find that Dick was hammered when he shot his friend in the face. Laws were broken that day and if it were you or me you know the cops accept being wouldn’t be turned away. Maybe being drunk while hunting doesn’t bother you, but he was drunk off his ass that day according to the Secret Service report. That news is just breaking. If I’m wrong I apologize, but if it’s true then I think you folks should fess up too. Thanks.