Perhaps the best-enjoyed smirk of all time has been on Dick Cheney’s face this week. Hated by the “mainstream media,” which is neither mainstream nor much of a news operation (though loaded with pundits and commentators who themselves seem loaded most of the time), Cheney has so disrupted these networks that their front-people have gone ballistic, excoriating the vice president in decibels calculated to damage the normal ear extensively. Hint: watch the evening-news programs on ABC, CBS, and NBC for examples of the proverbial hissy fit. Actually, the mainstreamers form the public-relations arm of the Democrat Party, and Cheney has upstaged them methodically and unrelentingly since he took office in 2001, perhaps beginning seriously with his refusal to turn over certain documents regarding “energy meetings” that the court finally ruled he didn’t have to furnish, in the first place.
The real laugher, though, is that Cheney has rubbed the mainstream media’s nose in it, and, no doubt, has had that perpetual smirk on his face the whole time. Imagine…a lowly Corpus Christi (population some 281,000) newspaper getting the scoop of the century, at least so far, while all the big-time, pampered pundits and other Bush/Cheney haters have felt the embarrassment, and actually have tried to make a big deal out of a non-event, not unlike thousands that happen every year. Then, not to say anything from his murderous episode of Saturday until Wednesday…and then to say it to Fox News’ Brit Hume instead of to an important guy on an important network…well, that’s just hilarious. This is all Cheney’s doing and he’s probably saying to everyone, “How sweet it is,” knowing full well that every legal requirement was promptly satisfied concerning the reporting of the accidental shooting.
The duplicity of the mainstreamers is easily seen. This is an Associated Press report from last August 19: “Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., saw a doctor after feeling light-headed Tuesday and learned he'd suffered a mild stroke, aides said Friday.” So…the minority leader of the U.S. Senate, its most important democrat legislator and presumably the democrats’ national head honcho, suffered a light stroke on a Tuesday, and his office got around to reporting it the following Friday. Now, why didn’t the aides report that serious business within at least 30 seconds of the event…okay, at least by the next day…or the next?
Or, flash back to June of 1969. Old Teddy boy, Massachusetts senator then as now, drove the young lady into shallow Poucha Pond…the back tire was sticking out of the water when she was extricated without bruise, blemish, or broken bone many hours later, but she was dead. Meanwhile, Teddy boy tried unsuccessfully to get his lawyer buddy to confirm a cock-and-bull story that the lady was driving; then he swam over to his hotel and went to bed. Somebody else found the young lady many hours later. Lurid…yeah…so lurid that Teddy boy’s been in the Senate ever since. Was it an accident? One hopes so. Did it involve mostly superficial bird-shot wounds…or did it involve death? Should Teddy have made a better effort to rescue the lady…or was he maybe too drunk to function…or was he maybe too scared for his job and figured his lawyer buddy would risk his own career and confirm a lie? The records are readily available still, and a reading of them is overwhelming and damning.
On the basis of the punctuality of these reports, should Cheney be shot at sunrise…no, with night vision available, should he be shot BEFORE sunrise, preferably with a howitzer or maybe with one of those sixteen-inch guns removed from a mothballed battleship? There is a need to make the lesson unmistakable – a hunting accident rises at least to the level of treason/pre-mediated murder/reckless homicide/terroristic threatening/manslaughter/quail-snatching with a deadly weapon! Should one assume that a secret wiretap was involved? Until the sentence is carried out, should Cheney be appropriately tortured at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, or in Dan Rather’s office at CBS…or in all three, with the transcript of his Hume-interview flushed down the toilet? Should justice be served and Cheney be impeached for not having more sense than to try to kill somebody with bird-shot, thus exhibiting such a gross lack of gravitas as to be unfit for any office?
No charges have been filed, of course, thus further aggravating the mainstreamers, who now see potential coverage of legal proceedings as lost, with all the concomitant ranting and raving that would have accompanied a TV-moment like a grand jury proceeding or an inquest, not to mention the absolute bonanza of a trial that could rival – indeed, outdo – the Simpson murder trial in the 90s. The effort will be made, however, to keep the hunting incident on the front burner in perpetuity for the simple purpose of hounding the veep into resigning, with the usual clichés such as his “being an albatross around the president’s neck.” George Bush is probably fighting to keep a smirk off his face regarding the entire affair, since the mainstreamers hate him even more than they hate Cheney. Indeed, Cheney is important only as he can be used to get at Bush.
On Feb. 17, Harry Whittington, the victim of the bird shot, appeared on TV as he was being discharged from the Corpus Christi hospital where he was treated and indicated that he was “lucky,” and that accidents were expected in the world of hunting, where people choose to take certain risks. According to CNN, this is a statement by former president Clinton in March 1997: "I feel great, they did a terrific job," Clinton said, his voice piped into the news conference from his hospital room. "I had just an unlucky break." Clinton had slipped the night before at about 1:40 a.m. at Greg Norman’s house in Florida and injured his knee, necessitating surgery. Have any of the media attack dogs mentioned the time lag between that accident and the time it was reported to the press? Of course not, even though the president was the victim. This is just another example of the froth-at-the-mouth demeanor exhibited by the mainstreamers over the hunting accident, as well as their general approach to the administration.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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