FREAK OF THE WEEK: Washington, D.C., on-air host Doug McKelway

This week, the FredBlog shines its freaklight on Doug McKelway, a TV anchor in Washington, D.C., who makes us wonder if thou doth protest too much.

I know, you’ve never heard of this McKelway guy. I hadn’t either until I learned about his interview on NewsChannel 8’s “Let’s Talk Live” with fellow blogger Mike Rogers. The interview caught my attention at first just because Rogers is talking about the documentary he appears in, “Outrage,” about gay-but-closeted U.S. politicians. (The film is well worth seeing, by the way.)

Although McKelway is on Washington’s ABC affiliate, he was obviously influenced by the Fox News Channel school of interview techniques. He rants at Rogers from the get-go that he is opposed to Rogers’ work exposing closeted-yet-anti-gay politicians. And it escalates from there, with McKelway seemingly taking the whole issue very personally. McKelway even threatens to take Rogers outside and punch him in the face.

This is well worth watching:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4YhlmxUs_s

But that was only the beginning. The next day, when co-host Natasha Barrett (very weakly) tries to take McKelway to task, he very pointedly says he will not apologize. Here’s that video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulZFOz0N6Fg&feature=PlayList&p=E0E8641BDFD49DAC&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=68

First off, there is an issue here that McKelway clearly does not get, which is that reporting on someone’s sexual orientation is NOT the same thing as gossiping about someone’s sexual behavior. It’s pathetic if McKelway holds to the outdated stereotype that sexual orientation is the same thing as sexual behavior.

And I’ve said it before, but I guess it needs to be said again. Sexual orientation, if relevant to a story, is not a matter of invading privacy – it’s a matter of reporting truth, which is what journalism is supposed to be about. In an age when politicians’ and celebrities’ divorces, remarriages, affairs and sex tapes are fair game, why is it unfair to ask Florida Gov. Charlie Crist if he is gay?

Secondly, regardless of your personal bias, no respectable journalist has a right to be so disrespectful to an interview subject – and you certainly shouldn’t be threatening a guest with physical violence. McKelway should be suspended or fired – not allowed to use his show to make a point that he won’t apologize.

But lastly, Mr. McKelway, why is it exactly that this issue hits such a nerve? Just asking.

MORE CHENEY FREAKINESS

Since when can’t former Vice President Dick Cheney carry his own water? Well, this week, it seems, since the Republican Party has trotted out his daughter, Liz Cheney, as a “Republican strategist” to defend her father’s apocalyptic blubbering.

Since when is Liz Cheney a “Republican strategist”? All of a sudden, she is showing up on news chat shows, perhaps because the GOP is finally realizing that Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney is a terrible messenger for whatever ridiculous argument the party is now making.

ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” even put Liz Cheney on its round table to be part of the discussion of Dick Cheney’s dire predictions about national security under the Obama administration. Yeah, because, there was really a possibility that Liz Cheney would break out of the Cheneyland spin.

And while the party is forcing one Cheney daughter upon us, where’s the other one? That would be Mary Cheney, the public-when-she-wants-to-be lesbian daughter of Dick who famously worked for her father’s team but would not challenge her father on gay issues.

Then again, Mary Cheney has proven that she has a revolving door on her closet, and while the party has no problem with Liz Cheney, Mary is hiding in the shadows once again.