In Wolf v. Dick, Blitzer Wins

I think it’s safe to say that Wolf “out of line” Blitzer was the winner of last week’s verbal battle with Dick Cheney. Maureen Dowd recounted the highlights of the exchange in her column, and the Toronto Star says the interview is “now-famous.” (Already!)

Cheney didn’t fare very well. The St. Petersburg Times says Cheney “snapped, complained and growled,” Newsday hears a “the piercing dagger-squint and the abrupt flatness” in his “seething” tone, and Editor & Publisher compares Cheney to “Baghdad Bob.”

Meanwhile, Blitzer’s work is being praised. The Newark-Star Ledger notes the “tough questioning;” HuffPost says the interview transcript “contains terrific dramatic moments, bristling with the energy of a Mamet play;” and the interview, and the start of the Libby trial, even leads Tim Rutten to say that “Cheney and his former aides aren’t simply contemptuous of the individual reporters or even of the press itself. They’re contemptuous of the principle under which the free press operates — which is the American people’s right to have a reasonable account of what the government does in their name.”