"Looookattmeeee everybody!"
Posted on 02/17/2006 4:06:00 PM PST by Cornpone
United States Vice-President Dick Cheney badly handled a damage limitation exercise after accidentally shooting a hunting partner and could now become a case study for future politicians, experts said.
"This is a classic one," said political analyst Larry Sabato.
"It will be studied as one of the big ones -- an example of how a modest mishap goes completely out of control," said Sabato, head of the Centre for Politics at the University of Virginia.
In US politics, where spin and image control are crucial skills, the handling of the controversy has shocked many experienced White House hands.
The vice-president said he had accidentally shot lawyer Harry Whittington (78), during a quail hunt on Saturday on a Texas ranch.
The one-day delay in announcing it to the public -- and the way it was announced by the ranch owner to a local newspaper -- stunned many observers.
Cheney only spoke publicly about the incident, which he called "one of the worst days of my life", in a television interview on Wednesday -- four days after the event.
"He had an obligation to disclose it himself, and he should have done so Saturday night or Sunday morning," said Ari Fleischer, a former spokesperson for President George Bush.
"The vice-president has brought this on himself and on the White House."
He added: "It would have been a serious story, but it would have been a one-day story, with a follow-up on the gentleman's health."
Marlin Fitzwater, who was White House spokesperson from 1987 to 1992 under the administration of the elder George Bush, told Editor and Publisher magazine he was "appalled" by the administration's handling of the story.
He also said the story should have been made public straight away.
"It would have been the right thing to do, recognising his responsibility to the people as a nationally elected official, to tell the country what happened," Fitzwater added.
"It would have been confined to the vice-president. By not telling anyone for 24 hours, it made it a White House story," Fitzwater told the magazine. "It becomes a story about the White House handling of it."
Cheney's interview with Fox News Channel on Wednesday has also been criticised as too little, too late.
"Giving an interview to one individual, particularly in a forum deemed friendly to the administration, is unlikely to silence the criticism," the Miami Herald newspaper said in an editorial on Thursday.
"There are more questions to be asked and other angles to be pursued. The vice-president should hold a news conference and answer questions from a larger circle of interviewers if he wants to put this public relations debacle behind him."
Opposition Democrats have seized on Cheney's behavior as emblematic of his secrecy. Some in Cheney's Republican party have also conceded that he bungled the incident.
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer also demanded Cheney "clear the air" on a number of issues by holding a news conference.
"The press corps and American people deserve answers, not avoidance from this administration," Schumer said.
Respected New York Times columnist Bob Herbert called on the vice-president to resign in a column on Thursday.
He said the shooting imbroglio was the last step in a career sullied by scandals over the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, leaks of classified information and a penchant for secrecy.
"It's time for Dick Cheney to step down for the sake of the country and for the sake of the Bush administration," Herbert wrote, citing "Cheney's controversial and even bizarre behavior as vice-president."
Whatever he does at his point, Sabato said that the episode, which might have been a fleeting if embarrassing incident, now becomes forever associated with the vice-president.
"It confirms what they already know about Cheney: that he is secretive by nature. This is just another example of that," he said.
"It's permanent now in peoples' minds," Sabato added. "It will be in his obituary."
Sabato is one of the dumbest but extremely overrated political analysts in the country, he is always wrong in his analysis and predictions.
Big Time.
Oh yeah, right.
Im really surprised at Ari
So let me get this straight.
Cheney goes hunting and ACCIDENTLY shoots his friend, and because he didn't go running to tell the New York Times and the rest of the MSM about it right away he should step down.
Bill Clinton, among many other things, rapes one woman, commits adultery with another who just happened to be a White House intern, sells nuclear secrets to China for campaign donations, and lies under oath while in front of Congress, and the MSM treats him like he is the greatest leader in our nation's history.
OK, got it.
The really sad part is that there are literally tens of millions of people in this country who believe and follow the rancid bile that the MSM pushes.
"This is a classic one." Oh really Larry?
How about the "classic" Chappaquiddick damage control effort when "The Swimmer" waited nine hours before notifying the police that one of his female volunteer staffers had drowned in his car submerged in a tidal pool?
Or... how about "classic" Monicagate damage control when Clinton had members of his own Cabinet unwittingly lie for him ON CAMERA no less? Give me a break!
Now, you want to see a case of mass hysteria, wait until the nameplate "Cheney" is replaced by "Rice."
"Whatever he does at his point, Sabato said that the episode, which might have been a fleeting if embarrassing incident, now becomes forever associated with the vice-president."
If I had a choice for being remembered as:
1) Tripping over my own feet
2) Attacking a killer rabbit
3) Using a chubby intern as a humidor
4) The Shooter
I'd pick #4.
I don't recall all the details of that particular incident, but shouldn't it be "2) Being attacked by a killer rabbit"?
Liberals believe in the selective right to privacy. Only pukes like Clinton, Kennedy, and Kerry can ever expect to have their privacy rights defended by that bunch of lowlifes.
South Africa??? Sorry but they don't get a say in that.
Yes, rectal openings like that raging metrosexual, David Gregory. Maybe "raging two-year-old" is more apt.
The Washington pressies are more fun to watch than their arrogance will allow them to realize.
And, they also are making a big deal out of .....the sketch of his wounds were on the left side of his face, and in actuality they are on the right side of his face.
These guys will not stop!
VP Cheney showed EXCELLENT JUDGEMENT in caring about his friend, as opposed to caring about the press and politics first!
Mark
I think all White House press releases should be made to smaller news outlets throughout Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana from now on.
Let the vultures in the northeast corridor beg for scraps.
Not only that, but the media is "crying their collective eyes out" over how "secretive" this administration is... I can't imagine why! Before President Bush was even elected, he was savaged by the press as being a nit-wit, formrely drunken "party boy." And do you remember the word, "gravitas?" That was the word that the MSM used to describe the VP candidate that President Bush's handlers (remember, he was that nit-wit, light-weight) would need to select, to really run the country. What they got was a serious man with lots of executive experience in the "real world," something that simply scares the liberal press. And the fact that he got rich running on of the biggest companies in the world immediately made VP Cheney their enemy, since good people don't get rich by running big companies, unless they're leftists who spout the leftist lines.
So, the MSM savaged both President Bush and Vice President Cheney relentlessly, saying terrible things, repeating lies, and making the overseas press believe all those things. So, the rest of the world bought what the American MSM was saying, hook, line, and sinker, and then pointed at the overseas press as proof that the Administration was inept and The President a flake.
Personally, this whole incident has given me an even lower impression of the press, something that I really didn't think was possible.
Mark
I believe this headline has been recurring since before November 2000.
"Looookattmeeee everybody!"
Agreed. Even I thought they knew when they had jumped the shark.
But we must remember, a narcissist always believes they are beautiful, smart, popular, witty, and worthy of praise.
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