That Liberal NPR

From Talk of the Nation:

CONAN: Susannah Meadows is general editor at Newsweek magazine. She analyzed Newsweek's recent poll, which measured the effect of Richard Clarke's testimony on public opinion. And she spoke to us from her home in Brooklyn, New York. Obviously, that was the first poll to emerge last week. There will be others with greater information as time goes on.

Let's get some callers on the line. And Richard joins us from Louisville, Kentucky.

RICHARD (Caller): Yes.

CONAN: Yes.

RICHARD: I'd like to say that, listening to Clarke's testimony, it solidified in my mind the fact that not only was there smoke but fire underlining this decision to enter the war in Iraq. And it caused me to do a little bit more research and understand that prior to 9/11, Dick Cheney was appointed head of the task force for anti-terrorism, and yet he had no meetings, zero meetings, with people to discuss terrorism in this country or facing this country.

CONAN: I'm unfamiliar with that.

RICHARD: Yeah. And I found it quite unusual that that little item wasn't subpoenaed. So, you know, and being a Vietnam veteran, I guess I had leanings in that direction anyway.

CONAN: I have to ask Mary Louise, are you familiar with this? I've not heard it come up in the hearings at all.

KELLY: Oh, I haven't heard it come up at all. When you said Dick Cheney, sir, becoming the chair of the counterterrorist group in the White House, you meant Dick Cheney, not Richard Clarke?

RICHARD: No, Dick Cheney was appointed as a task-force leader by President Bush, and he made that statement to the public, that he was going to be looking over terrorism and the threat that it posed...

CONAN: Again, I'm going to have to look into that. It would seem it would have come up had it happened that way. Maybe I'm wrong, though, Richard. We'll have to go back and check on that.

RICHARD: Well, that'd be great.

CONAN: OK.

RICHARD: Thank you for the show and the call.

CONAN: OK. Thank you very much.

RICHARD: Right-o. Bye.