Cheney: ‘You Can’t Blame Anybody Else’
Senior advisers to President Bush worried that Cheney’s silence had suggested a possible cover-up, and Cheney acknowledged that he delayed an announcement over the advice of Bush’s press advisers.
“We really didn’t know until Sunday morning that Harry was probably going to be OK, that it looked like there hadn’t been any serious damage to any vital organ,” he said. “And that’s when we began the process of notifying the press.”
Anyone who suggests that this is anything less than standard procedure clearly knows nothing about the White House’s media policy. There always has been and always will be a 24-hour window between an event like this and its announcement to the press.
If they reported the shooting before they knew if the victim was going to be okay, they wouldn’t know what kind of crime they’d be covering up. Is it murder? Negligent homicide? Failure to signal when approaching the Vice President from behind?
Besides, the White House can’t just throw together a press conference at a moment’s notice. Someone has to set up the folding chairs. They need to make punch. Potato salad. Seven-layer dip. Someone has to rouse Scott McClellan from a Vicodan-induced haze of self-loathing.
Plus, they need adequate lead time to assess the situation, to confirm all the facts, and to let Dick Cheney sober up.
“The image of him falling is something I’ll never ever be able to get out of my mind,” Cheney told Fox’s Brit Hume. “I fired, and there’s Harry falling. It was, I’d have to say, one of the worst days of my life at that moment.”
I can understand why he would be upset. Dick Cheney isn’t used to firing a weapon and seeing his victim falling. Dick Cheney is used to seeing them evaporate into a cloud of blood and semi-solid matter.
Often, when the sunlight refracts through the blood mist, Dick Cheney sees a rainbow.
Cheney … agreed with [the] decision to choose the Corpus Christi Caller-Times as the way to get the news out.
“I thought that made good sense because you can get as accurate a story as possible from somebody who knew and understood hunting and then it would immediately go up to the wires and be posted on the Web site, which is the way it went out and I thought that was the right call,” Cheney said.
Contrary to the critics’ assertions, this is actually quite a standard way of releasing major White House news.
For example, when Scooter Libby was indicted, the news was first released through Mary Sue Baskin’s CatLuvRz Blog (www.livejournal.com/blogs/~poughkeepsie/catluvrz/index.html).
Do you have any idea how many people visit that blog every day looking for tips on making homemade cat toys? Dozens.
It’s inevitable that at least one of those people knows someone who knows someone who is in a knitting circle with the nephew of an AP reporter. And just like that, the news rockets ’round the world.
Similarly, Tom DeLay’s indictment was initially reported on page 34 of the Brooks Glen, South Dakota Pennysaver coupon booklet. Now, if the White House was really trying to downplay the incident, would they have published it right next to a coupon for Free Pot Roast?
I think not.
Cheney responded, “The accuracy was enormously important. I had no press person with me.”
When I think accuracy, I think the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
Did you read their expose last month on corn rust and stalk rot? Investigative reporting at its finest. Editor-In-Chief/Political Cartoonist/Delivery Boy Merle Branson is a master at getting to the meat of a story. Plus, he always throws the paper onto my porch, so it doesn’t get wet from my sprinklers.
Doesn’t get more accurate than that, my friend.
“I had a bit of the feeling that the press corps was upset because, to some extent, it was about them – they didn’t like the idea that we called the Corpus Christi Caller-Times instead of The New York Times,” [Cheney] said. “But it strikes me that the Corpus Christi Caller-Times is just as valid a news outlet as The New York Times is, especially for covering a major story in south Texas.”
The press corps can be such a bunch of babies. It’s “me me me” all of the time. Well, if they want to continue reporting on the White House, they’re going to have to learn to share.
The fact is, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times is a respectable journalistic enterprise. Sure, their circulation isn’t as high as the New York Times. But I’ll have you know that their output has more than doubled ever since the Corpus Christi Junior High donated that second photocopier.
