Thursday, February 23, 2006
Why go to the F-word network??
Let's agree that the White House might have handled the accidental shooting by Dick Cheney in a different fashion. They could have put out a press release, even with sketchy details, with more information to follow.
The vice president, of course, followed a different course. After the accidental shooting of his friend of 30 years, Harry Whittington, Cheney allowed the ranch owner -- a witness to the incident -- to give an interview to a local newspaper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
This incident became a perfect storm for all that the mainstream media dislikes about the Bush administration -- tax cuts, the war, his alleged secrecy, tax cuts, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, the Katrina response, tax cuts, Justices Alito and Roberts, his home state of Texas (where they have the death penalty), tax cuts, his walk, his pronunciation of the word "nuclear," and tax cuts.
When Cheney broke his silence, he elected to do so on Fox News, with former ABC White House correspondent Brit Hume conducting the interview. Hume, as usual, competently interviewed Vice President Cheney, asking him all the questions any fair-minded -- pardon the expression -- person might want to know.
Uh-oh. CNN's Jack Cafferty said, "It didn't exactly represent a profile in courage for the vice president to wander over there to the 'f-word' network for a sit down with Brit Hume. I mean that's a little like Bonnie interviewing Clyde, ain't it? I mean, where was the news conference? Where was the access to all of the members of the media? Whatever.
. . . I mean, you talk about facing a safe haven. He's not going to get any high hard ones from anybody at the 'f-word' network, I think we know that."
Read the rest as Larry Elder explains, although I refuse to agree that the White House should have issued a press release.
