The Fools In The Media

News this morning that VP Cheney will be on Fox News tonight to let the liberal media, who breathlessly report every nuance of this incident, know what happened. Every newspaper in the country is running headlines about this story and the fact that Cheney really doesn’t care what the media thinks about him:

Cheney, a former House member, White House chief of staff and corporate executive, is dismissive of the national media and unfazed by criticism and unflattering publicity. Bush picked Cheney as vice president in large part because of his lack of political ambitions and his ability to keep confidences.

[…]In general, Michel said, Cheney has “enclosed” his personal feelings so tightly to avoid showing them in public. “I guess that discipline upon himself is probably the thing that holds him back.” Cheney, he added, is virtually immune to public criticism and image problems: “I don’t think he really cares.”

Former senator Alan K. Simpson, a fellow Wyoming Republican who hunts with Cheney, said the vice president decided when he was defense secretary during the Persian Gulf War that journalists ask “stupid questions” and distort things, and so he probably sees no need to publicly explain himself.

“Whatever he does, Dick will do it his own way, because whatever he does, it will be the subject of ridicule,” Simpson said.

And to me this is a good thing. Does the media understand that most of America is laughing at them and at their unhinged behavior? Of course the rabid left is in a frenzy and backs the MSM completely, but honestly, when are they not in that state?

If Cheney had come out two hours after the incident, instead of the 14 it took, and quickly announced the shooting, do you think the MSM would have been satisified and let the story die? No way. Every hour would be updates on the victim, on the investigation by the local Sheriff, on how the VP feels. It would have been front page news because they have always believed Cheney is the puppetmaster, along with Karl.

What was the response in the media when Hillary Clinton would not let the death of Vincent Foster out to the public for 30 hours? Was it as rabid as it is now? Hardly.

Tony Blankley agree’s with me:

In the absence of any pressing news these days — other than Iran’s nuclear weapons development crisis, the election of Hamas terrorists in Palestine, ongoing worldwide Muslim riots and killing in reaction to a cartoon, Al Gore’s near sedition while speaking in Saudi Arabia, the turning over of our East Coast ports to be managed by a United Arab Emirates firm, the criminal leaking of vital NSA secrets to the New York Times, Mexican military incursions across our southern border, the Iraqi crisis, Congress’s refusal to deal with the developing financial collapse of Social Security and Medicare, inter alia — the White House press corp has exploded in righteous fury over the question of the vice president’s little shooting party last weekend.

As I understand the profound concern of the ever-alert White House reporters, they smell a constitutional crisis because the shooting party failed to alert the media of the accidental shooting down in Corpus Christi, Texas. Well, actually, they did alert the Corpus Christi media — but that didn’t count. Unless the exalted ones have been formally informed by an official government press secretary, no public communication has technically occurred.

[…]If information isn’t hand-delivered in gilt-edged paper to them while they are reclined on their chaise lounges, it hasn’t been released to the public. And if they don’t report a fact, it hasn’t happened. This provision is vital to a vigorous and independent free press. [I should note, my copy of the Constitution must be outdated, because it doesn’t have an Article XXIII.]

[…]When an out-of-town newspaper got the scoop, the dignity of the White House press corp had been impeached, so they threw a public temper tantrum. As that has worked for many of them since their early childhood, they obviously expect it to work while on the job — to use the term loosely.

To add to their indignity, the reporter for the Washington Post went on MSNBC dressed up in a hunting costume to ridicule the vice president. (It is said that the enfeebled and debased French dauphin, Charles VII, dressed in women’s clothing to hide from Joan of Arc, who was trying to save France.)

I suppose most of us, as we rise in life, develop a sense of entitlement and pompous dignity. Doubtless we all think we are more important than we are. As Charles De Gaulle once sardonically observed, “The graveyards are full of indispensable men.”

But the Washington press corp, and particularly the White House press corp, has developed, as an institution, a grossly dilated view of itself. Most of us can tolerate arrogance if it is accompanied by extraordinary capacity and virtuosity. The brilliant scientist, the war-winning general, the great artists are entitled to their pride.

But the hallmark of the Washington Press corp these days is mediocrity, groupthink, a lack of curiosity and rampant careerism. These attributes were all on show in the shooting party incident. But this is just a trivial incident — except for the poor, shot gentleman who suffered a heart attack, may he recover fully and quickly.

In my opinion Cheney has it right. Disregard the elite media outlets and reporters, show them the lack of respect they so richly deserve. Hugh Hewitt weighed in on this hoopla also:

Los Angeles Times: Hunter Suffers Setback as Criticism of Cheney Grows

The Washington Post: Cheney’s Response A Concern In GOP

The New York Times: Handling of Mishap Creates Strain in the White House

The Boston Globe: Hunter shot by Cheney has a heart attack

The Globe’s story is particularly breathless, saying the “sudden turn” in Harry Whittington’s condition left the White House “stunned” and his “prognosis difficult.”

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius opines that “arrogance of power is on display with the Bush administration,” and astonishingly compares the Veep’s hunting accident to Chappaquiddick and Watergate:

Nobody died at Armstrong Ranch, but this incident reminds me a bit of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s delay in informing Massachusetts authorities about his role in the fatal automobile accident at Chappaquiddick in 1969. That story, and dozens of others about the Kennedy family, illustrates how wealthy, powerful people can behave as if they are above the law. For my generation, the fall of Richard Nixon is the ultimate allegory about how power can corrupt and destroy. It begins not with venality but with a sense of God-given mission.

The MSM is unhinged, a victim of its Bush hatred, which includes of course hatred of Cheney. The idea that failure to tell the White House press corps of a hunting accident for 14 hours is in anyway similar to leaving a woman to die in a submerged car while fleeing the scene or the cover-up of Watergate is just nuts.

And the American people know it.

What the Beltway gang seems not to understand is that most of America is laughing at them, not frowning at the Veep. There isn’t a single fact we haven’t been told, and we don’t much care if the pampered poobahs of the press got a heads up after four or 14 hours.

There isn’t a cover-up, there isn’t an issue, there isn’t even a controversy.

There is, however, a spectacle, and it is another black eye for the MSM.

Curious how the above reporter brings up Chappaquidick. In that incident Mr. Lard Ass didn’t notify the press quickly either. Should he have notified the press? No. If it indeed was an accident he had no obligation to notify them about anything. The difference in the two events are huge tho. Not only did he not call the press, he didn’t call for help to rescue the victim. A bit different huh?

But in the eyes of the MSM Chappaquidick didn’t change anything, they still love him and treat him with kids gloves.

And then you have the response from Hillary:

“The refusal of this administration to level with the American people on matters large and small is very disturbing, because it goes counter to the way our constitutional democracy … is supposed to work.”

Wha-wa-wa-what? Are you kidding me? Did your husband level with the American people when he stated “I did not have sexual relations with that women!” Do you level with the American people when you refused to let the news that Vincent Foster had committed suicide out for 30 hours? Didn’t the Clintons say that the fact her husband screwed around with Lewinsky was a “private matter”?

How about the subpoena of tax documents that took 2 years to find: (h/t Gateway Pundit)

Mr. BURTON of Indiana: Mr. Speaker, Newsweek magazine reported this week that the FBI had discovered Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s fingerprints on billing records from the Rose law firm discovered at the White House in January. These billing records have been under subpoena and could not be found for over 2 years. Nobody knew where they were. And yet, just recently, they were found in President Clinton and Mrs. Clinton’s personal residence at the White House by Mrs. Clinton’s secretary.

But a private hunting trip on private property is now a “public” matter.

How about Harry Reid’s stroke last August? Why did he delay letting the press know about it for 3 days?

Asked why announcement of the event was delayed for three days, Hafen said, “The reason was the tests and the evaluations that they were doing. We wanted to make sure we knew what we were announcing. You need conclusive information.”

Would that be considered a “private matter” also?

Itr sure does appear that when something occures in a Democrats personal life the MSM treats it as a “private matter”, when it’s a Republican the gloves are off.

Once again, no bias here.

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