Cheney wants this column ‘off the record’

Vice President Dick Cheney shared his views on his boss, the 2004 presidential campaign and whether Saddam Hussein is alive or dead May 6 in an interview at SMU’s McFarlin Auditorium. But if the White House had anything to say about it, no one outside of the room that evening would have heard a word he had to say.

SMU President R. Gerald Turner stipulated before Cheney’s interview, delivered as part of the Willis M. Tate Distinguished Lecture Series, that all of the vice president’s comments were “off the record.”

That means journalists in the audience could not quote or attribute any information he shared back to the vice president

Journalists often afford this luxury to sources in order to gain inside information that is not otherwise be available. But the idea that an interview conducted with the vice president in front of a sold-out crowd of hundreds can be off the record is absurd.

Almost everything the No. 2 man has to say should be considered newsworthy, especially at a time when his administration has sent our country into war, created a massive new department of homeland security and proposed another round of questionable tax cuts during an economic slump.

With all this to-do, you might expect that Cheney released a shocking disclosure that he didn’t want to appear on the front pages. But, alas, there were no confessions of Lewinsky-like peccadilloes or Enron-esque admissions of corporate malfeasance. In fact, only one question that challenged the Bush administration’s record was asked the whole evening.

Did the White House really expect the media to take a hands-off approach to Cheney’s remarks on May 6? Maybe not.

According to SMU’s News and Media Relations department, the decision may have been more a matter of procedure than a decision made by any individual.

When ticket sales to the event began to reach capacity, SMU decided to close the event to the media in order to make more tickets available to the public.

This is a common move for events with a large public appeal, but this only means that priority access is not available to the press. Any media organization that can gain access to the event on its own is welcome to cover it.

While last year’s Tate Lecture featuring former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was closed to the media, The Dallas Morning News and other news organizations had stories on the lecture the next morning.

However, Cheney’s off the record request came because of an intersection of SMU’s decision and White House press policy. The White House Press Office considers any event that is closed to the media to also be off the record, resulting in another collision of bureaucratic absurdity.

No one on the stage seemed to grant the stipulation too much gravity, either. The vice president mugged for the audience about his hesitance to be quoted as he shared his opinions on whether or not Saddam Hussein was dead or alive (dead) and his favorite fly fishing spots (a cabin he rents with friends in British Columbia).

Even the audience didn’t seem to pay the request much heed. From my seat in McFarlin Auditorium’s upper balcony, I spotted more than a few people taking copious notes.

(It’s a testament to the tenacity of our local media that The Dallas Morning News published a full account of the lecture the next morning.)

So why am I making such a big deal out of a request that all parties involved seemed to view as a mere formality? Why is a request for an elected official to go “off the record” for the duration of public forum objectionable?

The purpose of any lecture is to enlighten and inform. If the media is barred from taking what occurred in front of a select audience and sharing it with the public at large, both of those goals are hindered.

This is just one instance in a frequent pattern of unnecessary silence from Bush administration officials. Mr. Cheney is a public official and as such must be prepared to have his remarks covered by the news media, especially at public events. This obligation is simply part of the checks and balances of an open government and democracy.

The request for an “off the record” session strikes at the heart of the freedom of the press assured by the First Amendment. We as citizens of this country deserve better from our public officials.