Cheney Follow-Up
I've been corresponding for a few days with all kinds of folks about the Cheney hunting accident. Let me repeat here what I've said there.
1. This is not about the fact that there was a terrible accident. Everyone feels bad for Cheney and Whittington -- I can't imagine anything worse that accidentally shooting a friend, or even an acquaintance (or even an enemy, but that's the Gandhi in me). It's about an executive branch of government that is absolutely out of control, and a president and vice president who think they are (a) above the law and (b) not accountable to anyone.
2. This notion that anyone who criticizes the way the vice president handled this is being insensitive is, in a word, bunk. And, in another word, a cynical attempt at diversion (okay, that's five words). As I noted in my Wednesday column, the first statment put out by the vice president's office did not even mention the accident or the victim or his condition or the vice president's well-wishes. It was a blunt, matter-of-fact, heartless statement about hunting licenses -- addressing, it seems, the vice president's potential legal exposure. Read it here.
3. The irony is this: If the vice president had simply put out a statement on Saturday night explaining what happened, expressing his sadness about the accident, wishing his friend well, and promising to address reporters in a couple days, after the shock of it was past and Whittington was on the mend, he would have GAINED admirers. But he chose to do something quite different, and therefore quite revealing.
4. The Fox News "interview" was a preposterous slap in the face of the American people. This isn't about "media entitlement," as the Republican talking points would have you believe. This is about a government that is accountable to the people, and its current leaders who blatantly reject that fundamental bedrock of our democratic system.
5. I wish Mr. Whittington and Mr. Cheney well, physically and emotionally. But I absolutely reject the call to avoid comment on something that the vice president himself turned into a metaphor for this administration's dictatorship-style approach to informing -- or more accurately, not informing -- the public. I chose that phrase purposefully when writing Wednesday's column. Anyone, regardless of partisan slant, who isn't chilled by the actions of this administration when it comes to information and secrecy and accountability should review their history books to see how incremental changes, over time, undermine societies and lead to tyranny.
UPDATE: With regard to the jokes in the first 24 hours after the accident, please remember this: According to the official government spokesperson, a.k.a. a lobbyist named Katharine Armstrong, Cheney "peppered" Whittington in what was made to sound like a minor accident. Not disclosing the severity of the accident and the wounds led the late-night comics and others to assume it was, in fact, minor -- not to mention Scott McClellan's Tuesday morning attempt at humor with his orange tie. Clearly, it was not minor, but I don't blame the writing staffs of Letterman or Leno for thinking that it was.
1. This is not about the fact that there was a terrible accident. Everyone feels bad for Cheney and Whittington -- I can't imagine anything worse that accidentally shooting a friend, or even an acquaintance (or even an enemy, but that's the Gandhi in me). It's about an executive branch of government that is absolutely out of control, and a president and vice president who think they are (a) above the law and (b) not accountable to anyone.
2. This notion that anyone who criticizes the way the vice president handled this is being insensitive is, in a word, bunk. And, in another word, a cynical attempt at diversion (okay, that's five words). As I noted in my Wednesday column, the first statment put out by the vice president's office did not even mention the accident or the victim or his condition or the vice president's well-wishes. It was a blunt, matter-of-fact, heartless statement about hunting licenses -- addressing, it seems, the vice president's potential legal exposure. Read it here.
3. The irony is this: If the vice president had simply put out a statement on Saturday night explaining what happened, expressing his sadness about the accident, wishing his friend well, and promising to address reporters in a couple days, after the shock of it was past and Whittington was on the mend, he would have GAINED admirers. But he chose to do something quite different, and therefore quite revealing.
4. The Fox News "interview" was a preposterous slap in the face of the American people. This isn't about "media entitlement," as the Republican talking points would have you believe. This is about a government that is accountable to the people, and its current leaders who blatantly reject that fundamental bedrock of our democratic system.
5. I wish Mr. Whittington and Mr. Cheney well, physically and emotionally. But I absolutely reject the call to avoid comment on something that the vice president himself turned into a metaphor for this administration's dictatorship-style approach to informing -- or more accurately, not informing -- the public. I chose that phrase purposefully when writing Wednesday's column. Anyone, regardless of partisan slant, who isn't chilled by the actions of this administration when it comes to information and secrecy and accountability should review their history books to see how incremental changes, over time, undermine societies and lead to tyranny.
UPDATE: With regard to the jokes in the first 24 hours after the accident, please remember this: According to the official government spokesperson, a.k.a. a lobbyist named Katharine Armstrong, Cheney "peppered" Whittington in what was made to sound like a minor accident. Not disclosing the severity of the accident and the wounds led the late-night comics and others to assume it was, in fact, minor -- not to mention Scott McClellan's Tuesday morning attempt at humor with his orange tie. Clearly, it was not minor, but I don't blame the writing staffs of Letterman or Leno for thinking that it was.
posted by Bill at 6:43 PM
2 Comments:
>>It's about an executive branch of government that is absolutely out of control, and a president and vice president who think they are (a) above the law and (b) not accountable to anyone.<<
Granted it's possible for sincere people to believe the above.
That said, finding astonishing new evidence for the anything in the Cheney hunting accident is...well... silly. Same thing for the Bush pretzel choking episode. Same thing for Clinton slipping on Greg Norman's stairs... Same thing for Ford beaning a spectator with a golf ball...etc.
All in all, bottom line, they're pretty much nothing but Letterman Top 10 fodder.
I've heard that laughter is the best medicine for what ails you.
And it just so happens that what ails us and the rest of the world right now are a "Heckuva Job" President and a "Run-Amok" Vice-President.
But then, tyrants with an ego-problem hate it when their subjects laugh at them.
So keep on laughing, and cracking jokes, and laughing, and cracking jokes, and maybe we the people can drive them out of the White House.
Because crying about their stupidity, incompetence and blatant corruption certainly doesn't seem to be working.
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