I managed to catch reruns of Dick Cheney’s interview with Brit Hume last night, and it was a very different side of the Vice President. Cheney’s always been the Administration attack dog, but he seemed genuinely remorseful about the incident in which his close friend Harry Whittington was accidentally shot.
The media will no doubt be fixated on Cheney’s poor media response, but the only people who care about such things are people in the media. The rest of the country has absolutely no interest in the usual self-important swagger of the media in wondering why they didn’t get to send News Copter 5 in while Whittington was still bleeding on the ground. Cheney’s staffers should have done more to brief the media early on, but the utterly idiotic and self-important whining of the media that they were scooped by a local paper is another example of how the media lives in its own bubble.
As for Cheney, seeing a more human side of him will probably help rather than hurt his numbers – not that the Vice President is the type who gives a damn about approval ratings. He is a lame duck, he has no intention of furthering his political career towards higher office. He isn’t running in 2008 (although I wish he would announce that he would just so Helen Thomas’ head would explode like a watermelon at a Gallagher show). He’s there to do the job, and that’s what he intends to do – which in many ways is a refreshing change from the disingenuous ass-kissing antics of those politicians seeking to leave their slime trails higher and higher along the ladder of government.
As far as I’m concerned, and I’m sure this is true for most of America, this is a personal tragedy for Cheney and Whittington, and not a matter of public concern. Hunting accidents are part of the sport, and a moment’s inattention can have disastrous – even fatal – results. Cheney clearly feels terrible about this event, as well he should, and he’s taken full responsibility for his actions. The media will naturally flog this dead horse until it’s rendered into glue, and the left will continue to act unhinged as Terry McAuliffe’s idiotic and shameful comments demonstrate, but for those outside the media bubble this is just a particularly sad historical footnote.
What did McAuliffe say?
I’m starting to wonder if this whole thing wasn’t staged as a way of redirecting public attention away from Cheney’s role in the CIA leak investigation. Rather than the end-of-week headlines capstoned by a vindictive, bloodthirsty and paranoid Vice-President seeking to personally destroy anyone who challenges him, we instead get headlines about the “touchingly remorseful” Cheney “showing a side we’ve never seen before” after an accident that “could have happened to anyone.”
When Clinton got his cock sucked it was a matter of public concern.