Liz Cheney's 'qualifications'

In response to an earlier post, reader Bryce pointed out in comments that the Washington Post failed to identify Liz Cheney as the daughter of the vice president in her op-ed.

After agreeing that her bylines were unsatisfactory, DB went on a Google search to see if the WaPo even took it upon themselves to report on what exactly Liz Cheney has done in her capacity at the State Department. I haven't found much at all.

While I've been on my quest, I see that Greg Sargent has taken an interest in this topic as well. He got Fred Hiatt to answer for the lack of full disclosure on her relationship to her father:

We published Liz Cheney's piece based on her qualifications as a former high-ranking State Dept. official with oversight of Near Eastern Affairs. I don't believe qualified professional women need to be identified by their husbands or fathers, even when well-known.

Pathetic. But what about the news division? If Liz Cheney is so qualified, why aren't there more reports about what she's been up to? As I've noted before, the Iran Syria Operations Group's existence was denied by the White House initially. Liz Cheney has had a budget of $80 million dollars to spend on influencing politics (one way or another) in Iran. What has her group been up to? Shouldn't the WaPo be reporting on that?

Isn't it incumbent upon a newspaper that gives prime real estate to an individual based solely on her "qualifications" and not relationship to a certain world leader to actually report once in a while what exactly she has been doing?

Can anybody out there find some examples of the Washington Post (or anyone else for that matter) reporting on what exactly Liz Cheney was up to while working at State?

UPDATE: I'd add... What qualifications can anybody working in the Cheney operations claim to have with regards to Syria? Is there even a policy other than do nothing and hope for something to trigger a war?

UPDATE II: As far as Hiatt's response goes... what is he talking about? It's got nothing to do with respect for a professional woman. She didn't work her way up in the world of advertising or construction or something, writing about something unrelated to her father and his work. She got a choice position in her father's administration. She no longer works in that administration, but she's writing an attack on her father's primary political opposition and the only other thing she's written in the Post was a similar attack mirroring her father's arguments. All that on top of the point of this post... If she's so qualified to attack the Speaker of the House, what has the Post ever written about her excellent deeds?

UPDATE III: Leaching off Sargent's blog... One of his commenters found this Hiatt column, dated Jan. 29, 2005:

When we publish a letter to the editor, we formally ask writers whether they have any conflict of interest that should be disclosed. By that we mean any relationship -- financial, family, employment or otherwise -- that a reasonable reader might consider relevant. We try to ascertain the same from op-ed writers, though the question has not been part of our official acceptance process. From now on it will be.

Ouch. But, again, what has the Post ever written about Liz Cheney's work involving Syria? What has she done that makes her a credible critic of Nancy Pelosi? And more important, when will Hiatt's paper write something about the Iran Syria Operations Group in the vice president's office and the $80 million of taxpayer money Liz Cheney once had at her disposal (and what she did with it)?

Another Cheney boondoggle

When DB heard speculation around the blog-o-sphere that Elliott Abrams was behind the recent Pelosi smears, that came as no surprise, for many reasons. The biggest reason was that I heard this exchange at a State Department press briefing:

MR. MCCORMACK: I can't tell you exactly how this -- how it works. There were some staff- level contacts. Typically when congressional delegations do make plans for a visit, they do have to work with the Administration in terms of arranging the logistics and, you know, mundane things like getting country clearance from the embassy. So there is a necessary level of work that needs to be done before any foreign travel by official visitors from the government, whether that's in the Executive Branch or the Legislative Branch. I can't tell you exactly when those contacts were initiated. But of course, when we learned of the intentions of a visit, we huddled, thought about whether or not that it was in fact a good idea, whether or not this -- our position had changed from previous such proposed visits, and at that point we initiated staff-level contacts.

And when it became clear that Speaker Pelosi intended to move forward with her visit, then we offered up the briefing about where we stand in our policy vis-à-vis Syria and how we saw events in the region. Jim Jeffrey, our number two guy in the Near East Bureau, Middle East bureau, went up to Capitol Hill and I think he was actually briefing Speaker Pelosi herself as well as other members of the delegation and their staffs.

QUESTION: You said that --

QUESTION: Jim Jeffrey was going to ask Pelosi to deliver a tough message to --

MR. MCCORMACK: That's our advice. That was our advice.

Jim Jeffrey is more than a diplomat in the Near East Bureau. He's got an important job in the Iran Syria Operations Group, whose very existence was at one point denied by the White House. Here's how Laura Rozen described his position in January:

Formally overseen by a steering committee headed by National Security Council Middle East adviser Elliott Abrams and James Jeffrey, the State Department's principal deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, the so-called ISOG is managed day to day by David Denehy, a senior adviser at State's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and a former official with the International Republican Institute. Denehy has recently told some associates that he plans to move sometime early this year to the Office of the Vice President, where he would continue to coordinate the Iran-Syria group.

I wrote about the ISOG and the cast of characters (war-mongers) and former Office of Special Plans (con artists who now work there) back in January, when a ridiculous op-ed by Liz Cheney hit the pages of the Washington Post.

What do you know? She's at it again! Dick sent his daughter on another journalistic boondoggle today to keep the pressure on Pelosi and to hide the fact that the only policy the State Department has for Syria is to hold their breath and hope it will be our sailors who wind up in an Iranian or Syrian prison instead of the wimpy British, who no longer remember how to start a glorious war.

How do you know you are dealing with people who love war? Ask if we should consider using nuclear weapons. If they say "We should keep all our options on the table," ask them if we should negotiate. When they say you cannot, you'll know for sure. No matter how much you increase the threat of violence, all options are on the table. No matter how much you reduce the potential impact of dialog, that option is off the table.

"All our options" doesn't include talking. Talking is not an option. There's no reason in the world to expect any cooperation from Syria. Period.

During the past five years, there have been no acts of terrorism against US citizens in Syria. The Government of Syria has cooperated significantly with the United States and other foreign governments against al-Qaida, the Taliban, and other terrorist organizations and individuals. It also has discouraged any signs of public support for al-Qaida, including in the media and at mosques. -- U.S. State Dept. (PDF)

Uh... Er... Well, we can only ask for cooperation if they'll going to torture a Canadian for us. That's an offer the Cheneys can't refuse. Otherwise, expect more op-eds about what rotten people they are.