Mood:
incredulousTopic: peace
Mr Sheridan (pictured, but older and fatter now) is known as one of the "dancing bears" of the media as labelled by ex ALP leader Mark Latham, an evocative reference to tubby hairy types in the sector. Here is the official version About Greg Sheridan | Greg Sheridan biography | The Australian
He is a figure that encourages the SAM writer to swim laps.
Greg slums it in the Sydney Sunday Telegraph on 25th Feb 07, p7 of Opinion section, a tabloid when usually found in The Australian broadsheet http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/gregsheridan/ also owned by USA citizen Rupert Murdoch's News Limited with this
"Cheney - a good man to have in your corner"
hard to find online, and to quote:
"I conducted an interview with Cheney on Friday, the only one-on-one [its all innocent, no hair bear Mardi Gras sexual frolics, Cheney's gay daughter not withstanding] media interview Cheney did while he was in Australia." ....
"he also had a tough message on Iran and that was that the US would certainly not rule out a military strike against Iran to prevent it from becoming a nuclear state." ...."
[Which may well explain this report of Iran, echoing China (a huge Iranian oil client) shooting a weather satellite out of the sky a few weeks ago, to underline their possible ability to shoot down USA military satellites: Iran Launches Rocket Into Sub-Orbit in Test - New York Times - 25 Feb 2007] Picture: enlarged image from Fairfax press of big Dick Cheney saying goodbye on Kingsford Smith Airport tarmac last Sunday evening 25th Feb 07, with some kind of expression, (entering a divorce court, a broken spirit, Nuremberg trial for war crimes?) which also ran in the rival broadsheet The Australian same day. Sheridan continues in his story: "Much of the liberal press is unfair to Cheney. He is sometimes characterised as some kind of weird extremist." [sure Greg, like colleague Matt Price at The Australian extracted here in SAM's piece Thursday, 15 February 2007, Yankees abroad plan to boo Cheney visit to Australia index.blog?topic_id=1084060 reporting Cheney's fraudulent claims for going to war in Iraq, as an oil industry/Halliburton corporate loyalist, not least his ex Chief of Staff Scooter Libby in court for breach of national security law for political gain at the orders of his boss Cheney] ....
The haunted eyes, the clenched jaw, forlorn soulfulness. Outstanding photo journalism. On a lighter note the image reminds of the West Wing episode where VP 'Bingo Bob' repeatedly tells the tedious joke of squinting through his left eye so the coat of arms looks like 'President' absent 'Vice'. In Cheney's case vicious is more like it physically similar to the former Nazi SS dentist character in Marathon Man .
"Cheney has also made it clear in the past that he believes Saddam had a long-standing relationship with al-Qaeda"
[the so called international terrorist network, or isolated cells of ultra violent jihadists, depending on who you listen to, that Saddam almost certainly had no dealings with at all hence Sheridan's use of the words "in the past"].
Sheridan is indeed the dancing bear for powerful organ grinders no doubt. Here is a revealing discussion of the journalist in the Pentagon offices in April 2004 and doing their PR no doubt because:
" .... Sheridan’s brand of seculo-Christian-based morality also has much in common with that of the two neo-con leaders he so fervently admires and supports – John Howard and George W. Bush."
in Getting the Story Straight: Greg Sheridan in the Shifting Moral Sands of Iraq by Martin Hirst & Robert Schütze at http://eprint.uq.edu.au/archive/00001178/01/mh_rs_over_04.pdf
The authors conclude:
"Finally, Orwell would almost certainly have regarded Sheridan as a ‘Blimp’, a fulminating member of the militaristic and imperialist middle class intelligentsia wedded to glorified notions of Empire, loyalty and morality. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the Australian press and the Murdoch papers in particular, were open to dissenting voices, but unfortunately they’re not. Sheridan is one of a whole phalanx of conservative and neo-con columnists at the Australian and there are others just like him at all the other quality papers. Don’t even get us started on the Daily Terror!"Daily Terror meaning Sydney Daily Telegraph, the weekday version of ... the Sydney Sunday Telegraph with the Greg Sheridan quotes above.
