Q&A: Jack Cafferty

Saturday, Sep. 15, 2007
Q&A: Jack Cafferty
By Andrea Sachs
TIME

No one has ever accused CNN commentator Jack Cafferty of being a shrinking violet. He routinely sounds off in his own tart, curmudgeon-like way on CNN's popular news show, The Situation Room. Now Cafferty has written his first book, It's Getting Ugly Out There: The Frauds, Bunglers, Liars and Losers Who Are Hurting America (Wiley). Besides calling it as he sees it politically, he tells the story of growing up in a turbulent family in Reno, Nevada, in the 1950s. TIME'sA: publishing reporter Andrea Sachs spoke with Cafferty between shows:

(snip)


Q: You're known for your sarcastic style on the air, and even being a little cranky. Where would you say that tone comes from?
A: (Laughs.) Well, I think that our government spends a good part of their waking hours figuring out what batch of lies they're going to tell us next. I don't believe most of what I'm told by the politicians. I think virtually everything they say for public consumption is said with an agenda. I just don't think that we have a very honest relationship with our government in this country, and it makes me angry.

Q: One new poll says that a majority of people favor impeachment for President Bush. Your reaction?
A: I'm not the least bit surprised. There's a case for taking a look at what the Administration may or may not have done that rises to level of high crimes and misdemeanors. Impeachment was put into the Constitution for a reason. I think it was perhaps one of the most arrogant things I've ever seen in my life for Nancy Pelosi, on the day after Democrats won control of the House, to make this announcement as though this was Moses coming down with the tablets, that impeachment's been taken off the table. Well who the hell is she to take it off the table? It's part of the Constitution. I think there is reason to suspect that things have been done that may not be kosher, and I think the government's responsibility is to determine that. That's part of why they're there. That's what Congress does. That's the checks and balances. So whether he deserves to be impeached or not, I guess we'll never know, because they're not going to bother to look at it.

Q: Did the cable networks overdo it covering Anna Nicole Smith's death?
A: Of course they overdid it. That's why I asked Wolf Blitzer on the air, Is Anna Nicole Smith still dead? Because we'd done two hours on this peroxide never-was, passing apparently from some kind of drug overdose in some seedy hotel room in Florida. It's like, who cares? Nobody cares. We've got a war going on in Iraq, we've got budget deficits, we've got yadda-yadda-yadda. It's a dilemma for commercial television, the key word being "commercial." They're in business to make money. How do you make money? By attracting an audience. How do you attract an audience? By putting stuff on the air people are interested in.

Q: Has anything you've ever said on the air really gotten you in trouble?
A: Once. I called Donald Rumsfeld a war criminal the night before the midterm election. The president of the network and the executive producer of the Situation Room and two or three other management gerbils assaulted me en masse, immediately as I got off of the air, saying, "You can't say that." Apparently, what happened was our correspondent at the Pentagon started getting these phone calls from people in the Pentagon, saying, "Cafferty just called Rumsfeld a war criminal." I had to go on the air and say, "You know, I've stepped over the line." That being said, I will go to my grave as Jack Cafferty, Private Citizen, believing that these people committed war crimes.


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* http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1662283,00.html

I realize he's an old curmudgeon, but I guess I am too! I hae disagreed with him, but it's a rare time that I do!

I still miss him on "On the Money" on the weekend! I don't understand why MSNBC took him off that show!

Stay with us Jack. I bought your book yestrday!

but CNN program.

I guess they want young turks there.

I am afraid to comment more because who knows what all he has said. But when I catch him on tv, (not often), he seems to speak his mind. Reminds of KO in that regard.

cable news haven't made more of an impact than they have? Jack and Keith have a LARGE following, yet the channels keep sticking to their overall
RW reporting? Radio does the same thing. Clear Channel insists that they prefer RW radio. WHY? There seems to be quite a market for Progressive radio and TV but they fire people like Donahue and promote Mathews and Hannity.

RWers see the world in black and white, yes and no, they and us. No shades of gray, nuances or even "on the one hand, etc.'

And since most of us suffer from attention span and seek information in short, simple terms, it is easier to provide these along the line of RW.

This is why I admire Clinton's mastering of replying to questions in the debate in short, concise terms, while Obama, like Kerry and Gore still reply in thinking terms.

He's got them nailed. And he's absolutely right.

"two or three other management gerbils assaulted me en masse". . This is how they OUGHT to be regarded.

Thank you.

caffertyfile@CNN.com

(I think that's current)

(by which I mean late 2003, early 2004...pretty swift on the uptake, huh?)

This makes him a giant among midgets. What a sad commentary on the mental weakness of the Imperial Subjects of Amerika.

he does not stick by one idea once formed, but allows for new information to change his stand.

We call this intelligence, they call it flip-flop..