Briefly noted: The Washington Post wins a Pulitzer Prize for Gellman and Becker's series on Cheney

Last June when I read Barton Gellman (photo) and Jo Becker’s four part series on Vice-President Cheney, I said to myself and others, “This is prize-winning journalism.” The first article was published on June 25th, which I posted about here.

This morning, I wasn’t surprised when I read that The Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for the 30,000 word “Angler – The Cheney Vice Presidency” by Gellman and Becker.

From today’s article: The series “…[E]xamined how Cheney ‘has shaped his times as no vice president has before,’ including his impact on the U.S. anti-terrorism effort, tax and spending policies and environmental regulation.

"’I resisted this assignment for a while because I thought it was too hard,’ Gellman said. ‘I thought the guy is just going to be too tough to crack.’” Thank goodness Gellman and Becker stuck with it. Given what is going on today regarding:

1. The U.S.’s “anti-terrorism efforts,” which include torture, warrantless eavesdropping, and beating the war drums for an attack on Iran;

2. “Tax and spending policies,” as our country goes into deep debt for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and slides into a recession; and

3. “Environmental regulation,” as global warming is largely ignored and scientific studies about how serious it is are repressed,

this series is as timely as it was six months ago because Cheney continues to exert tremendous influence over President Bush.

(Photos of Barton Gellman and Cheney from The Washington Post)

Follow-up to a previous post: Award-winning Washinton Post series about Dick Cheney

On June 25, I posted Cheney under a microscope about the four part series about Vice President Cheney coming out that week in the Washington Post.
The articles haven’t won any awards yet, but I expect them to because they have had a huge impact on our understanding of just who Dick Cheney is and have even prompted a Congressional hearing.

In case you missed them, here they are:
June 25: 'A Different Understanding with the President'
June 26: Pushing the Envelope on Presidential Power
June 27: A Strong Push from Backstage
June 28: Leaving No Tracks

The photo of dead fish is related to the Leaving No Tracks article: “Because of Cheney's intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was no threat to the fish. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River.

“Characteristically, Cheney left no tracks.”

On June 29, one day after Leaving No Tracks was published, it was announced that the House Natural Resources Committee will soon convene an oversight hearing about Dick Cheney's role in the change in Department of Interior policy that led to the Klamath River fish kill of 2002-and to massive die-offs of juvenile salmon and steelhead very year since.

For excellent commentary on the Washington Post series and Cheney, check out the July 9 New Yorker article by Hendrik Hertzberg The Darksider.

Hertzberg describes Cheney as the “…[M]ost most influential public official in the country, not necessarily excluding President Bush, and his influence has been entirely malign. He is pathologically (but purposefully) secretive; treacherous toward colleagues; coldly manipulative of the callow, lazy, and ignorant President he serves; contemptuous of public opinion; and dismissive not only of international law (a fairly standard attitude for conservatives of his stripe) but also of the very idea that the Constitution and laws of the United States, including laws signed by his nominal superior, can be construed to limit the power of the executive to take any action that can plausibly be classified as part of an endless, endlessly expandable ‘war on terror.’”

(photo of Klamath fish kill – Students.Washington.edu)

Cheney under a microscope

Today the Washington Post launched a four part series, Angler- The Cheney Vice Presidency. Today’s lengthy article by Barton Gellman* and Jo Becker, a Washington Post staff writer, "A Different Understanding with the President" describes how Vice President Richard Cheney “A master of bureaucracy and detail, …exerts most of his influence out of public view.”

In my opinion, what happens between now and January of 2009 will depend on Cheney’s influence on President George W. Bush. Whether or not the U.S. will attack Iran is at stake.

On May 25, I posted Cheney at center of war talk targeting Iran, linking to the widely circulated May 24 post by Steve Clemons of The Washington Note, "Cheney Attempting to Constrain Bush's Choices on Iran Conflict: Staff Engaged in Insubordination Against President Bush".

There’s a power struggle in the White House going on between Secretary of State Condi Rice, urging a diplomatic approach to resolving our problems with Iran, and Vice-President Dick Cheney, who wants to take military action against Iran. To whom is Bush going to listen?

On June 2, I breathed a sigh of relief as I posted Is Condi cracking the whip? because it looked like Condi was gaining the upper hand.

But Scott Horton, who blogs for Harper's Magazine, (and knows a lot more than I do) posted Setting the Stage for the Next War on June 23 in which he states, “The coming war pits the United States against Iran. For the dead-ender neoconservatives…the solution to the current dilemma – a catastrophic failure in Iraq, badly miscast plans in Lebanon, an increasingly angry American electorate – is simple: we need a new war…. And while times may be difficult for the neocons generally, not to worry – they still have the key man. One man is the “decider” on questions respecting Iran. His name is Dick Cheney."

So find a comfortable chair, download, print and read all four of the Angler articles as they come out this week, and let me know what you think about Cheney and his influence on Bush.

*I have a soft spot in my heart for Barton Gellman because he quoted by son, Jeff Jonas, in two front-page Washington Post articles, available here and here.

(photo of Cheney - TVNewsLies.org)