The Christian Science Monitor

Cheney on the move, in a lower-profile mode

By David Cook | 11.09.08

Dick Cheney, one of the most consequential and controversial vice presidents in American history, finds himself with an even lower profile than usual, traveling with a small press corps and offering promises of a graceful transition to President Barack Obama.

In one sign of how media attention now is relentlessly focused on the incoming administration, the Monitor was the only news organization traveling with the vice president on Saturday, when he flew on Air Force Two to Virginia Military Academy (VMI) to speak at the college’s Military Appreciation Day. (The Monitor is part of a pool of newspapers that travels in the Washington area with the president and vice president and files reports to other news organizations.)

When the vice president arrived in Lexington, Va. – some 190 miles from Washington – crews from local TV stations as well as a reporter and photographer from the Associated Press were on hand.

The day before the trip to VMI, Mr. Cheney’s office had announced that upon the vice president’s return to Andrews Air Force Base Saturday afternoon he would be going to a facility at the base for a medical exam. Earlier in his term, that alone might have triggered national media interest.

The trip also was also a notable example of how, while media attention may have shifted, the logistics of moving the second most powerful person in the US government remain formidable. Scores of Secret Service agents, armored limousines, helicopters, and squads of intersection-blocking local police were deployed during Cheney’s brief journey.

There were some lighthearted moments during the outing. The vice president’s brilliant, bearded chief of staff, David Addington, smiled and clapped along as the school fight song was played at the end of the formal ceremonies at the VMI parade grounds. Mr. Addington has played a key role in the heated debate over appropriate use of presidential power in fighting terrorism. US News & World Report called him “the most powerful man you’ve never heard of.”

The day’s events began as two green-and-white Marine helicopters arrived at Andrews Air Force Base under overcast skies shortly before 8 a.m. The vice president, wearing a dark gray suit, white shirt, and red tie, exited his copter, posed briefly for pictures at the steps of Air Force Two, and boarded the Air Force C-32. The blue-and-white plane, with United States of America printed on the side, is similar to a Boeing 757.

Shortly before takeoff, Lea Anne Foster, assistant to the vice president for communications, came to the back of the plane where press seats are located to say that the vice president was “battling laryngitis.” During the flight, Cheney’s traveling physician could be seen going through several cases filled with medical supplies.

The sun had come out by the time Air Force Two touched down at Roanoke Regional Airport, after a 42-minute flight. A 10-vehicle motorcade – including the vice president’s armored limousine and an identical decoy limo – left the airport for a 54-minute drive through miles of rolling green Virginia farmland.

Roughly five miles from VMI, a woman stood by her van clapping and waving an American flag. At the campus entrance, a man held up a white sign saying, “Cheney and USA deserve a fair trial.” It wasn’t clear what that meant.

The motorcade arrived at the VMI campus at 9:50 and the vice president met with various college dignitaries. Founded in 1839, VMI was the first state-supported military college in the US.

After about half an hour, the vice presidential motorcade pulled up to the parade grounds, which are roughly the size of a football field. The 1,350-member cadet corps marched onto the field wearing gray coats, white pants, and black hats with tall black tassels, as the VMI regimental band and a bagpipe unit played. The bagpipe players wore red tartan kilts. This reporter, in ill-fitting blue blazer, felt severely underdressed.

At 10:48, the vice president walked to the podium as the VMI regimental band played ruffles and flourishes and as a 19-gun salute boomed from 105-millimeter howitzers at the end of the parade field. Cadet officers marched in review, and then the band played the national anthem as the gunpowder haze from the howitzer salute finally cleared.

Cheney began his remarks by apologizing for the quality of his voice. “The good news is it is going to be a short speech,” he said. It was: He spoke for about four minutes.

The vice president lauded VMI for its “immense contributions to the defense of the nation.” He said America’s terrorist enemies “reject and despise” the principles of a civilized life. Cheney said he and President Bush “will assure a smooth and graceful transition of power” to President-elect Obama. His biggest applause line was “those who hate America are no match for those who love America.”

As the formal ceremonies concluded, Cheney shook hands and posed for pictures with the nine top-ranking cadets before moving to a lunch that was closed to the press.

After lunch, the vice president’s motorcade pulled up to the George C. Marshall Museum on the VMI campus. Marshall was a 1901 graduate of VMI and its most famous alum. The vice president spent 45 minutes in the Marshall Museum viewing an array of exhibits about the Nobel Peace Prize-winning former Army chief of staff, secretary of State, Red Cross president, and secretary of Defense.

Hands in his pockets, Cheney examined an exhibit called “Urgency to Succeed,” which showed Marshall’s old Army uniforms. Further along, the vice president removed his glasses to take a closer look at an exhibit called “Soldier of Peace,” tracking the work for which Marshall won the Nobel Peace Prize. He paused in front of an Army jeep above which were Marshall’s words from March 1940: “We are going to take care of the troops first, last, and all the time.”

It was hard not to notice that in a building filled with displays, the vice president was himself an exhibit. As he toured, he was trailed by watchful Secret Service agents, members of his staff, and this reporter. No wonder the man does not smile all the time.

Before Cheney left the museum, an Air Force B-2 stealth bomber was spotted overhead, on its way to make a flyover at the home football game VMI was playing against Liberty University. It helps to have the vice president as a visitor if you want that kind of military display at a college football game.

A minute after Cheney said his goodbyes to VMI officials, the motorcade was rolling on its 55-minute drive to Roanoke for the brief flight back to Washington.

Citing concern for the privacy of other patients, the vice president’s office did not invite the press to accompany Cheney on his ride to the Malcolm Grove Medical Center at Andrews.

About half an hour after Cheney left for the exam, the vice president’s assistant for communications said, “The Vice President has completed a scheduled X-ray evaluation of long-standing knee arthritis. The films are pending interpretation by his doctors at George Washington University Hospital. The vice president is returning to his residence in St. Michaels to resume his normal schedule.”

Shortly after she spoke, the vice president’s motorcade pulled onto the tarmac at Andrews. He climbed into a helicopter and flew to his weekend getaway on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, leaving most of his staff and the press behind.

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Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen readies for new boss, Afghanistan challenges

By Dave Cook | 10.09.08

Adm. Michael Mullen, America’s top military officer, is preparing for a new commander in chief as well as major budget and operational challenges in 2009.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday that the military was making “a very robust effort” helping the McCain and Obama presidential campaigns prepare for a possible transition. In working with those who represent the next commander in chief, the Pentagon is “not seeking “ them out but is “there to assist,” Admiral Mullen told a Monitor-sponsored breakfast for reporters.

Transition was in the air Thursday, with the White House announcing that President Bush has established a team with the goal of ensuring “a seamless presidential transition,” said White House Press Secretary Dana Perino.

The next president will inherit oversight of a war the US is helping to fight in Afghanistan. Mullen previously has warned that the “most likely near-term attack” on the US is likely to come from the Afghan-Pakistan border. American intelligence agencies have determined that Afghanistan is on a “downward spiral,” with the Afghan government unable to counter the rise of the Taliban, according to news reports Thursday.

“The trends across the board are not going in the right direction,” Mullen said Thursday morning. “When we get into conflict, and we do that fairly significantly with the Taliban, with the insurgents there, we do quite well.” But he noted that “it is a matter of having enough forces, particularly in the south and the east. The north and the west are reasonably quiet, but the south and the east are very, very tough. It has been very tough fighting this year, and it will be tougher next year unless we adjust in a way to get at all aspects of the challenges in Afghanistan.”

Since taking over as chairman in 2007, Mullen has argued that the US does not adequately fund some of its defense capabilities. But he acknowledged over breakfast that the current economic crisis would make it even harder to win the additional money he thinks the Pentagon needs.

“Certainly I have concerns with respect to the impact of the crisis tied to my desire to have a discussion and a debate about what we need to adequately fund the national security requirements of our country,” Mullen said. He said he recognizes that “the country has got some very significant fiscal challenges outside national security … [and that] all the fiscal challenges are clearly going to be intensified or heightened due to the current fiscal crisis.”

But he added, “I do think it is really important we have a discussion, have a debate, make a conscious decision about what the United States is going to do from a national security standpoint. In these times we have challenges that are global. We are fighting two conflicts. We are increasing the size of our forces, which we need to do, and the investments to support that are very, very important.”

Mullen mingled with reporters before the session and stayed after its formal end for 15 minutes to respond to additional questions. His ease with the press is not surprising. His father, Jack Mullen, was a respected Hollywood press agent whose clients included Ann Margaret, Anthony Quinn, Julie Andrews, and Gene Autry.

Mullen was especially gracious when, in introducing him, I said, “He and his wife, Deborah, have a daughter as well as two sons who are graduates of the Naval Academy.” It turns out that Mullen’s wikipedia entry is wrong and that he does not have a daughter. When I apologized for the mistake, his response was, “my wife will love that.”

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Missing the McCain campaign’s political team

By Dave Cook | 09.04.08

Today we close out the Monitor breakfasts at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. We had two guests from the McCain campaign: John Boehner, convention chairman and the House minority leader, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the McCain campaign’s policy director. We were grateful for both visits.

Those who follow our newsmaker breakfasts may have noticed that we had several sessions at the Democratic National Convention in Denver with top Obama political strategists but none here with McCain’s political strategy team. It was not for want of trying.

The Monitor’s goal is to be as fair as humanly possible in covering campaigns. To that end, we sent both the Obama and McCain campaigns virtually identical e-mails inviting their top political operatives to be breakfast guests during the party conventions.

We never received a formal explanation for why the McCain political team did not drop by St. Paul’s Hilton Garden Inn, where our sessions were held. But the Republican convention schedule was scrambled by hurricane Gustav and Sen. John McCain’s decision to suspend political activities on Monday. And relations between the McCain leadership team and the media soured over press treatment of the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis told reporters on a morning conference call that the media “tried to throw dirt at our candidate.” He added that the media “ought to start looking at the balance of their coverage.”

Mr. Davis and Steve Schmidt, who runs the McCain campaign on a daily basis, made no effort to hide their fury over stories about the vetting process for Governor Palin and over reporting about the pregnancy of her unwed teenage daughter.

McCain, campaign manager Davis, and senior advisers Charlie Black and Nicolle Wallace have all graced our breakfasts in the past and we hope they will agree to return soon.

In the meantime, the speaker at our final session in St. Paul will be Robert Gibbs, the Obama campaign’s senior strategist for communications and message. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney spoke for the Republicans at one of our sessions in Denver.

Mr. Gibbs is especially close to his candidate, as a recent profile in the Wall Street Journal noted [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121987142276777459.html]. He spends virtually every day with Obama and sits in one of the four club chairs in the private front compartment of the campaign jet.

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Republican Convention preparations

By Dave Cook | 08.31.08

The weather in St. Paul this Sunday morning is bright and beautiful as the party faithful gather for the Republican National Convention here.

But because of the weather in the Gulf Coast, the precise nature of the upcoming convention is uncertain with party leaders still figuring out how to alter their plans as a result of Hurricane Gustav. The McCain campaign is reportedly pondering options that include canceling a day of the gathering, using some portion of the convention to raise funds for storm victims, or toning down social events surrounding the gathering.

Meanwhile the Monitor convention team is converging on St Paul. Linda Feldmann, Ariel Sabar, photographers Melanie Stetson Freeman and Mary Knox Merrill, and I arrived somewhat bleary eyed from the Democratic Convention in Denver. Fresh troops, including deputy national editor Laurent Belsie, eminence gris Peter Grier, and web producer Pat Murphy will also be on hand.

On Saturday, I met with the Monitor’s convention technical guru, Paul Doherty, who was busy putting the final touches on our workspace in the Wilkins Center, which adjoins the Xcel Energy Center, where the convention will be held. At each political convention, office space for journalists is built out of metal piping and blue curtains. Invariably, some portion of the electronic infrastructure we order from the party planners does not arrive or is misconfigured. Then the ever calm and cheerful Mr. Doherty works his wonders.

Denver, a thriving, visitor-friendly city, was very much in lockdown mode during the Democratic convention, with police on most corners and SUVs cruising the city with a squad of cops equipped with riot gear standing on the running boards. There is a police presence here as well but so far not as obtrusive. One common theme in both cities: a fleet of black hybrid SUVs provided by General Motors.

For the Monitor team – and for most of our print colleagues from other newspapers– this year’s two conventions mark a pronounced new focus on coverage for the Web. Jimmy Orr, the Monitor’s online editor, is blogging nearly continuously. And the rest of us are also marching to a faster, Web-centered beat.

For example, stories triggered by Monitor newsmaker breakfasts that we host at the conventions used to come out in the next day’s paper. Now, reporters tap away on their laptops during the meal and hit the send button as soon as the guest is done speaking. For the first time, the Monitor is also posting video excerpts of our convention breakfasts to give those who are interested a fuller flavor of the event.

Parties for the media thrown by corporations in the host city are one political convention constant. In earlier days, only selected journalists were invited. Now, anyone with a preconvention press credential can attend. In Denver, the party was at a local amusement park where games had been adjusted so even a congenital klutz (of which the journalism field has its fair share) could win multiple stuffed animals.

Here, getting to the party required leaving St. Paul and taking a $30 cab ride to Minneapolis for a party by the Mississippi River in a site dominated by the architecturally striking, multilevel Guthrie Theater. The floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides of the structure’s ninth floor offered striking views of both Minneapolis and St Paul.

All manner of fancy hors d’oeuvres were being passed – or available on tables – for the several thousand guests at the party. There was no danger anyone would be thirsty, either. Much of the food was quite elegant. But if you were looking for amusement watching your fellow guests, it was hard to top the table of roasted corn – supplied with a bucket of butter into which the local delicacy was to be plunged.

It was hard not to feel a bit uncomfortable watching a hoard of journalists chowing down on free food provided by the city they will be writing about all week.

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Even on Democratic turf, GOP’s Romney has cachet

By David Cook | 08.26.08

Denver – We are holding this week’s Monitor breakfasts and lunches at the historic Brown Palace Hotel in the heart of Denver’s thriving downtown.

Rest assured the Monitor team is not sleeping at the Brown Palace. I was quoted a price of $600 a night. Putting that on a Monitor expense account would have brought my career with the paper to a quick end.

The gracious Denver landmark, the first atrium-style hotel built in the US, is filled with Democratic notables during the Democratic National Convention. As I was waiting for the elevator Tuesday morning, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright passed by and Washington super-lawyer and power broker Vernon Jordan stood in animated conversation with a friend.

While the hotel is filled with Obama forces, Republican surrogate Mitt Romney still caused a stir when he arrived at 11:30 Tuesday morning for a Monitor lunch with roughly 40 reporters. People standing in the lobby followed after him and called his name. News photographers snapped photos. Network crews milled outside the Onyx Room, where our meeting with him was being held.

After losing to John McCain in the Republican primaries, Mr. Romney is here in Denver as part of a Republican operation to make sure the cable networks have a handy McCain spokesman to help fill the hours devoted to the convention.

Romney is impressive in his dealings with reporters. Not only is the former Massachusetts governor articulate, but he looks like a candidate sent over by central casting – with full shock of thick black hair and a suit that looks as if it were molded to his body. The need to keep fitting into that suit may be why he always passes on the meals we serve at our events.

The Romney family has a long association with the Monitor breakfasts. Michigan Gov. George Romney, Mitt’s dad, was the guest at the third Monitor breakfast, which took place in January 1967. In July 1994, Mitt and his dad spoke at the same session, the only breakfast to feature a father-son duo in the 42 years our paper has been holding these sessions.

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