Oh to have the fawning pundit sheep Cheney has. Imagine if you will, it's 1997 again, the Lewinsky scandal breaks and the instead of a feeding frenzy that focused on everything from semen stains to the width of the mythical cigar, Clinton received a pass. What if Fox News (Krauthammer, Gibson et al) had announced that it wasn't news worthy or relevant to his job? Would "journalists" be pillioried for writing bits like this?
Is the Cheney story the story we should be obsessing on right now? Well, in a word: No. Granted, he is the Veep, and he did shoot someone; but come on, this is not the most important news item in the US this week.
Insert your own orange vest/yellowcake uranium joke here. Inquiring minds want to know: Aren't I going to write about Cheney? What am I supposed to say? Accidents are bad? OK. Accidents are bad. For the record, here it is: Dick Cheney should not have shot Harry Whittington. Not that most reporters will leave the brouhaha there. There is the familiar refrain, which is always the follow-up when you don't bash the Bushies enough: What about the White House's handling of the incident?
An off-duty incident in Dick Cheney's private life has been hyped in the media as if it had some real significance for more than a quarter of a billion Americans.
But I found myself thinking, how can I judge this man? After all, I don't know how it feels to perforate a pal with an errant shot.So, for me at least, it's over.
We squeezed the last ounce of juice from this grape. We have exposed every facet of this bizarre event.
Secrecy? This was hardly an affair of state. And it was hardly going to be kept secret. Arrogance? The media laying these charges are the same media that just last week unilaterally decided that the public's right to know did not extend to seeing cartoons that had aroused half the world, burned a small part of it and deeply affected the American national interest. Having arrogated to themselves the judgment of what a free people should be allowed to see regarding an issue that is literally burning, they then go ballistic over a few hours' delay in revealing an accident with only the most trivial connection to the nation's interest or purpose.
But no, this is puritanical America where shooting a buddy in the face with a shotgun is something you sweep under the rug but squeeze off a load of jiszm in an intern's face, and the American people have to pony up ~$40 million to investigate it.
I guess it all balances out. The victim apologized like a good boy... and polls show the American people are "over" this already. Wonder who told them?
Posted by kerry at February 19, 2006 04:17 AM