Thomas Sowell takes off his belt and spanks the “Spoiled Brat Media”. From RCP:
The first revolt of the American colonists against their British rulers was immortalized by Ralph Waldo Emerson as “the shot heard round the world.” Vice President Dick Cheney’s hunting accident has now become the shot heard round the Beltway.
The accidental shooting of Harry Whittington, while he was on a hunting trip with Dick Cheney, has nothing to do with government policy or the Vice President’s official duties but the mainstream media have gone ballistic over it nevertheless.
They are also angry that the news was not given to them more quickly, which prevented it from becoming the feeding frenzy of the Sunday television talk shows. Whether this delay was deliberate or otherwise, it is being called a “cover-up” in the media, as if there were some crime to cover up.
NBC White House correspondent David Gregory was shouting at White House press secretary Scott McClellan, as if Mr. Gregory’s Constitutional rights were being violated. It was a classic example of a special interest demanding special privileges—as if they were rights.
There is nothing in the Constitution or the laws that says that the media have a right to be in the White House at all, much less to have press conferences.
This has become a customary courtesy over the years, but courtesy is a two-way street, except for those in the media who act like spoiled brats, as if they have some inherent right to whatever serves their institutional, career, or ideological purposes.
The media love to wrap themselves in the mantle of “the public’s right to know” but there is no such dedication to that right when it goes against the journalists’ own prejudices.
[…]
The “public’s right to know” apparently extends only to such things as will not cause the public to reach conclusions different from those of the liberal media.
[…]
An off-duty incident in Dick Cheney’s private life has been hyped in the media as if it had some real significance for more than a quarter of a billion Americans.
The media want to know when was President Bush informed about this incident? What did the White House press secretary know and when did he know it?
The people who mattered—doctors and local law enforcement—were informed immediately about the hunting accident. What was President Bush supposed to do—other than provide the media with something to print or broadcast?
*Cough cough Katrina cough cough* Ahem. Excuse me.
The media are so full of themselves—among other things that they are full of—that they act as if the government exists to provide them with something to publicize. The time is long overdue to put these people in their place. […].
The New York Times informs us solemnly that, if Mr. Whittington dies, there will be a grand jury investigation.
If Mr. Whittington is so uncooperative as not to die, there will be much disappointment and frustration in Beltway media circles.
The money quote here, so far as I’m concerned, is Sowell’s observation that “the ‘public’s right to know’ apparently extends only to such things as will not cause the public to reach conclusions different from those of the liberal media.”
The anger we’ve witnessed over this story—followed predictably by wild conspiracy theories and a feeding frenzy from the progressive left looking for moments of Fox Mulderean “lost time”—is simply further proof that the legacy media demands the right to frame, “report,” and explain the narrative.
Reporting has become less about reporting facts in their proper context so that the public can remain informed than it’s become about teaching the proper “lessons” all those facts supposedly reveal, once they’ve been gathered, culled, properly parsed, coordinated, and finally reconstructed by those who consider themselves the gatekeepers of public discourse.
That Cheney and his people did not follow familiar protocol prevented the gatekeepers from initially framing the story. And so, almost in desperation, the story became about their inability to get and frame the story—in a manner and fashion of their choosing.
For five days now, then, we’ve watched the petulant national media whine, disort, condemn, and otherwise masturbate publicly.*
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask David Gregory to zip it up—in more ways than one.
(h/t Terry Hastings)
****
update: Democratic ghoulishness reaches new heights of bad taste. Bloody bastards.
(h/t topsecretk9)
Only those who leisurely approach that which the masses are busy about can be busy about that which the masses take leisurely.
The accidental shooting of Harry Whittington, while he was on a hunting trip with Dick Cheney, has nothing to do with government policy or the Vice President’s official duties but the mainstream media have gone ballistic over it nevertheless.
Kind of like the Clinton/Lewinski episode. I hate the VP but I don’t care if he accidnetally caps his buddy. Journalists investigate; they don’t go to press conferences and badger some administrative flunky.
Well put, Beginner!
This is one more example of the reason I don’t watch television newscasts. The time is long past when television can report the news.
Coverage of Katrina was an embarassment–and I didn’t watch it, I only read about the errors in reporting and the blatant non-reporting–but the invention of a “cover-up” storyline in this episode is pure media navel gazing.
I said elsewhere, but I’ll say it again:
Watching the media over the last couple of days reminds me of watching ALL the popular high school girls get their panties in a wad when their queen bee gets dumped by the local studmuffin.
If the MSM reports and there is no one listening, does it still make a really stupid sound?
Agreed. For the journalists out there, heed:
There is no such thing as a “journalism emergency.” The need to publish does not entitle you to be a priority whenever anything happens.
Pitiful.
Oh how I love you Jeff…that is good stuff.
Some of the more hyperventilating conspiracy theorists remind me of what a friend of mine once said “they are the people who think the X-files is a documentary, not fiction”…
JuanE, why is it that no one seems to recall that Clinton/Lewinski was actually about Clinton/Paula Jones?
I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask David Gregory to zip it upâ€â€in more ways than one.
Thanks for putting that image in my head.
With no apology to the liberal rat bastard Al Franken, welcome to the David Gregory decade where we must all base our actions on what the NBC dipshit correspondent of the day will think.
I know others have said it, but what say we wait on Mr. Whittington to speak on the matter? Even more, let’s see if the Huffington moonbats-on-meth will line up with Mother Sheehan, Ramsey Clark, and Howard Dean to stand bedside with him to show solidarity against the giant C-O-N-S-P-I-R-A-C-Y. Just so he can flip them off.
Hmmm.
You know this has made me consider something. What if the White House took a leaf from the recent The Baltimore Sun vs Erlich decision and decided to restrict the flow of information to a relatively small subset of reporters?
OMG! The MSM would absolutely have a shit-fit, but it would be completely legal.
They like in NYC too. The daily show has had a field day.
That’s why the release of info took so long. It took a while to gather, cull, properly parse, coordinate and reconstruc the fact that the vice president shot a guy in the face. Better to do the media’s job for them.
Accuracy is important.
Actus –
Just out of curiousity, it’s a given that the owner of the ranch gave information about the accident to the media.
Could you go into some detail about the distinction between David Gregory reporting on a hunting accident on a private ranch and the reporter(s) that did the initial reporting?
Thanks in advance.
Let’s not forget, ‘the media’ was informed.
.
Clinton shot Monica in the face repeatedly.
At what point, actus, was he required to tell NBC news about it?
God, you’re annoying. Isn’t there some busy street you can go play in or, alternatively, off yourself in an orgiastic autoerotic asphyxsiation martyrdom stunt?
Please consider. Thanks.
Right. Accuracy is important. That’s why the former head of the Texas wildlife agency, 100 yards away from the shooting, tipped off a long-time contact she had in a local paper the next day.
It takes a day because the VP’s office needs to have time to gather, cull, properly parse, coordinate and reconstruct the fact that the vice president shot a guy in the face.
The mainstream liberal press
with it’s usual lack of finesse,
ignores the Iranian
enriching uranium
but report “Cheney-gate” to excess
The media again displays,
as they do in so many ways
claims that they’re ‘fair’
are full of hot air,
and viewership quickly decays.
actus, your problem here is that you’re a little too much of an egotist.
They weren’t trying to hide anything from you, either personally or by category. They never informed you because you never crossed their minds; nor did it ever occur to them to conceal anything, because they didn’t think of you, or whatsisass Gregory, or Helen Thomas, or any of the rest of the White House “Press” Corps and the moonbat brigade. You don’t matter. Can’t say I’m sorry if that busts your bubble.
Regards,
Ric
No.
Seems to me if a VP shoots someone, the public ought to be told about it;–immediately.
Let’s face it, the VP likes secrecy.
Apparently Mr Cheney does not look upon himself as a public figure, much less a public employee, being payed by the citizens.
The public and the public’s right to know be damned.
If the media doesn’t like it, too bad.
The arrogance of power…..
Don’t you dare tell me to zip it up, I will zip it up when I am ready, ok, so don’t tell me to do it, I am going to get very angry, very angry and I am asking important questions here.
You won’t treat or speak to David Gregory in this fashion, it’s uncalled for and rude. You are just rude. Don’t you dare take shots at me persoanlly, ok?
The real question is why Vice President Cheney did not call me personally and tell me that he shot someone, and that is very important right now.
My wife and I are going to a cocktail party thrown by Claire Shipman and her husband, we will be back elevenish, mmm kay?
Bonjour.
It takes a day because the VP’s office needs to have time to gather, cull, properly parse, coordinate and reconstruct the fact that the vice president shot a guy in the face.
Oh, a page from Sidney Blumthal playbook, right. Oh, wait, sorry…no one said Whittington was a sexed crazed stalker. Wrong cull, my bad.
So here comes the majesty of the Liberal “equal rights” express, champion of all things against the “little” guy, ever vigilant Knights of the white cross of “fair”, and warriors in the class wars against the institutionally established overlords, now suddenly saying that “how dare the VP give the news out through a small no-name menial fly-over country newspaper…”
– and you actus see nothing ironic in your sides screeching, childish tantrums, in support of the elitist legacy press? Is that your well studied position?
Actus is here because he has nothing else to do. He’s Ally Sheedy in the Breakfast Club.
He’s Ally Sheedy in the Breakfast Club.
Dandruff and all.
By the flaring nostrils of Judd Nelson, Jeff’s right!!
Hmmm…. well maybe…But you should know we’re still on the fence as too actus’s real identity Goldtein…. After the ‘dillo debacle we have our eye on you, and your rimless ocular daliances….So just watch your literary step….
sssssssss … damn sticky key…. feh
I love wallowing in the bright sunlight reflecting off of the jilted starlings as they melt into the past.
Dick pulled a MAJOR boner and the media ends up making him look good. They must get their PR tactics from the PLO.
Anyone will tell you that the only sport that is done behind more beer than softball is sunset birding. The fact that Dick was sober was his primary malfunction.
Goss, the public’s “right to know” ? You want to find that in the Constitution for me? I missed teaching that to my students, and I’m sure they would like your constitutional law knowledge.
Don’t feed the trolls, folks, acthole and the CarlGossBorg have been programmed to seep into whatever post Jeff says “Cheney” in and shit it.
They can’t help it. They’re only masochistic bytes. Yeah, apparently code like that actually exists
We’ve been through this all about a hundred times. It’s a waste of bandwidth.
Apparently burried in the back of the Constitutional vault, theres another document called “The Liberal Marxist Utopian Constitution of Socialist rights” which only the left are privy too, but will be unveiled for the masses on the second coming of the ideogod. The rest of us will just have to wait patiently for each coded release of the latest idiotarian commandment.
TW: Great moments in moonbat history…..
Carl!
Why?
And why isn’t eighteen hours “immediate” enough?
:peter
Jeff
I have a request, do you think you could do a meaningless unscientific online poll questioning meaningless unscientific online polls, that you then ask us all to spam it so that you might kid yourself and/or us, your readers and thereby we can all pretend that our having voted in a meaningless unscientific online poll makes us feel like were actually doing something, being heard and a part something, like firebrands do?
That’d be great.
I’m not upset at this. If I hadn’t known from reading blogs i’d know from watching my download of the daily show on tuesday. Whats curious is people thinking this is a white house press corps thing. Because if the white house DID release it like other normal news, it wouldn’t be exclusively to the white house press corps, but a general press release. But when they do answer questions, it is from the press corps. The release though, wouldn’t be to just the people in that room.
But overall, I think its rational that they delayed it. They needed time to gather, cull, properly parse, coordinate and reconstruct the fact that the vice president shot a guy in the face. You can’t just say: “The vice president shot someone in the face.” You need all that extra stuff.
But what I really don’t get is this:
I don’t think they would “have framed it.” They would have just run with it—The VP shot someone in the face. As it is, who ended up ‘framing’ it? Mrs. Armstrong? The Corpus Christy press? Everybody asking ‘what else is there?’ And ‘is there going to be a release or what?’
But all that screaming at McClellan makes them look so manly! Grrr, I am reporter, hear me roar!
After their cowardly cartoon capitulation, it fed their egos.
I can see Harry Whittington Press Conference
1st Reporter : Mr Whittington are you dead yet ?
Harry: No
2nd Reporter : How about Now ?
Harry : Still alive
3rd Reporter : How about Now ? Because I got dead line in an hour.
1st Reporter : Yeah Die already !
2nd Reporter : Maybe he already Dead !
3rd Reporter : He can’t be dead. He standing right there.
2nd Reporter : No, you moron. He is a zombie.
1st Reporter : Oh my God ! I can see the headlines “Bush’s Secret Zombie Army”
Harry : I’m still ….
3rd Reporter : Shut up ! Pedal Resident Evil lies somewhere else. Were reporting here.
1st Reporter : I like the Resident Evil angle…….pResident Evil
Peter,
You missed the point. As did Carl.
If Dick Cheney ever decides to shoot somebody, I can guarantee two things: it won’t be with birdshot, and the public will know about it immediately. He’ll probably insist on live coverage, on C-Span if nothing else.
Oh, and a third thing: his victim won’t be an obscure lawyer, it will be a public figure, probably a “journalist”.
Peppering a hunting buddy with no. 7-1/2 birdshot does not count as “shooting” anyone. You guys are simply parading your ignorance (regarding guns and hunting) and your egotism.
Which reminds me: does the Universe revolve around actus’s ass, or Carl’s? We really don’t know what to say without that information—clearly it can’t be both, despite their protests. Fight it out between yourselves and get back to us, guys.
Regards,
Ric
Hey actus,
Did they ask Clinton if there was a release or what?
Iran with nuclear weapons. Hugo Chavez. Kim Jong Il, still. A shooting war in Iraq. Afghanistan, again. Gitmo. Abu Graibh re-redux. The cartoon riots.
Do you suppose the media could find a story worth reporting on, or will we have another week of wah, wah, they didn’t tell me and I’m mad?
I finally figured why actus comes here. He’s like the kid that throws the temper tantrum in the floor of the store while Mom goes merrily about her business ignoring him. Actus has no friends and his family has long ago learned to push the ignore button. So he comes here to throw his tantrums begging for attention.
Come here actus, here’s a kiss for your boo boo, your such a good little boy. Now STFU and get lost! We adults are discussing adult matters and your getting on our nerves.
If Cheney had held a press conference on the hospital lawn immediately after the accident, we would now all be reading about how: “callous Cheney was to be holding a ptress conference while his wounded friend was lying at death’s door in the hospital. Why does everything have to be about him, the inhumane monster……”
They still want to protect his private Al Queda phone calls, but Dem’s want Harry Whittington’s blood
The right to know?
TO know…what?
That a guy in a private setting accidently shot a friend?
Who cares?
Sounds like the lovers of MoveON need to well…move on.
They’re a death cult top. That’s why they’re rooting for AlQaeda.
Beta
True that.
“Seems to me if a VP shoots someone, the public ought to be told about it;–immediately.”
Thanks for your input. I’m sure the Manual is being revised at this very hour.
The cops were told immediately. Whittington was taken to a hospital, also immediately. But actus and Carl W. Goss? Not told immediately? My GOD, what a terrible oversight! Why, why, the knowledge could have taken their hatred of Cheney from the merely febrile to full-on seething! They HAD TO BE TOLD IMMEDIATELY!
I’m sorry, but the coverup thing doesn’t wash either.
I blame Cheney for his initial carelessness, and for taking as long this week to say something about it as he did, but not for the speed at which Our Betters In The Press Corps were informed.
I know I’m late to the game, but I feel like fisking a troll:
Why? Where do you draw the line on the off-duty actions of the veep or any other member of the govt in regards to what should be publicised and what shouldn’t. Maybe you ought to write up a manual on it for us and code in which actions are to be publicised and in what way. Maybe news regarding lying under oath can be released through smoke signals. Cuban smoke signals.
He’s doing a damned poor job of maintaining it in this case then. You’d think he would have quarantined Kenedy county and threatened every disinterested sumbitch nearby with a painful death. If he was as serious about secrecy as all that.
A lot of public people are interested in secrecy. I’m still dying to hear how that Ronald Reagan/Sandra Bernhardt tryst turned out.
Because he publicised the event on his schedule rather than someone elses? That makes him unaware of his role? Fuckin’ ludicrous.
I make my living as a public employee also. My meager-assed salary is paid by the citizens of the state of Texas. I don’t know that I’d feel like that compels me to share all the details of my life if it so happened that anybody gave a flyin’ fuck.
The public knows. Nobody’s arguing that. The pissin’ and moanin’ is over a time issue.
That’s right. They’re not officially the 4th equal branch of govt, but the pissin’ and moanin’ would lead one to believe that they missed the memo.
You damned right. The arrogance of the beltway press and their quest to do something powerful like overturn a presidency they detest is exactly what is driving this entire shitstorm.
God, I feel dirty…..
Oh god no. TV news is a joke. I don’t even have one. Don’t get your news from there.
– Even now I can feel the poofery going out of this “outrage of the week”. Now that the electorate have gotten a front row seat to the mendacity and hubris of the MSM elite we shall see more of this. Obsessives can alway be counted on to obsess to ever greater heights….
TW: I think the legs on this puppy are shot….
TW: I think the legs on this puppy are shot….
God, I hope not. This is working out great for the GOP. Just one more in a thick stack of examples of ridiculous press bias that the folks can refer to when they start to wonder if they should take the TV talking heads seriously come election time. Their conclusion will be “hell, no” after this (and other fiascos) and the inevitable MSM shilling for the Democrats will once again fall on deaf ears.
Thanks, David Gregory!
I have another conspiracy theory! I call it the Karl Rove Little Boy Who Cried Wolf Theory. Rove has planted all these non-stories about lies that weren’t and crimes that didn’t happen. Knowing the media would eat it up like candy. Now the public is saturated with non-stories to the point they totally ignore it. So tomorrows real, actual, truthful headline. “Bush has 158 Democrat leaders and major news reporters executed on White House lawn.” Average American yawns and turns to the sports page.
You are too kind Jeff. I hereby grant any link left by me on your comments the sole property of you and you may take all hat-tip-ness for yourself (for having the sagacity to recognize my magnificence.)
They haven’t seen it before?
Thanks, kelly.
It took what? almost ten years now for that image, latent in the story all this time, to finally appear in my mind.
Monica’s perpetually cartoon-shocked eyes and greasy dip-glossed lips so fake they look stamped onto the flat pink Miss Piggy makeup mask that hides her face…the vast wobbling blond-fuzzed Big Mac-churning Clinton belly…theâ€â€(Shoots self in face.)
Boz
and to think BoZ, Bill had to endure all of her stupid ideas and suggestions on like education and stuff, to get there
How long is too long? Was it OK to call in medical help before calling David Gregory? How about Whittington’s family? Does respect for their right to know supercede Jack Cafferty’s “right to know”?
14 hours is too long? How about 3? Or 5? What about 8? Can you wait for a medical evaluation? And who is it OK to tell? A local CBS affiliate? Or does it have to be a nationally known personality?
How demented must you be to ponder these things?
– Will Cheney get the NRA “Sportsman of the year” award?
– Will David Gregory recieve the award hes been working so hard for as a journalist from the American Kennel Club?
– Will Kerry’s staff finally find that form 180 inside a coke machine at the Heintz plant in Hartford?
– Is Al’s speach an indication the DNC is openly courting the Wahabi vote, and will the Saudi check clear the bank?
– Will Hillery visit the museum, kiss and hug her waxen self, then knee Bill in the balls one more time?
– Will Hackett join the travist monks?
– Did Wonkette really run away and start an ass-hump lovers commune in Oregon?
– Will Kennedy’s liver finally fall out on the Senate floor with a loud splat, causing Boxer to pee herself?
– Will Reid and Polosi be discovered in a Washington motel doing nasty things to each other with rolled up pages from the little red book?
– Will McCauliffe’s head actually explode live on FOX if Condi wins in 2008?
– Does Bob Becket get a huge woodie everytime Coulter calls him a raving Liberal Lunitic?
– Will Andrew Sullivan actually turn out to be a cross dressing furniture salesman from Newark?
These, the important questions of our time, will have us all pondering for answers in the days to come….
word up: question
I’d say they were a death cult bottom: like in the South Park movie, only with Osama instead of Saddam.
TW pressure. Oh, the possibilities….
The part I’m starting to love the most is the endless repetition of “The VP !Shot! !Someone! in the !Face!!”
actus, you said:
Do you not see that “The VP shot someone in the face” is framing it? And did you miss the word “initially”? News will always be framed – it can’t stand in a vacuum; therefore the most accurate frame ought to be the one used, wouldn’t you say? So… which is the more accurate frame: “The VP shot someone in the face” or “The VP, in a hunting accident, peppered a fellow hunter with birdshot”? (Unless you’re up for the conspiracy, of course.)
I’m inching ever-closer to some kind of thesis on this failure to distinguish between dissimilar but marginally related elements: a miss with No. 8 birdshot, resulting in a peppering of someone’s face, is presented in exactly the same terms as we’d hear for an aimed shot with a deer rifle resulting in near-death and leaving the person’s face a bloody pulp. (I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt by assuming that if the latter scenario had caused a death, they would’ve put that fact into the sentence.)
Or… to take another example… presenting the egregious humiliation of a few prisoners by a few guards who were subsequently court-martialled in the same terms as we’d hear for an actual top-down systemic policy of what used to be known as torture.
Darn it, actus, I thought you were actually going to be reasonable and drop it where it lay. Then again, you do serve the valuable function of keeping the thread going, I guess. (You too, Carl.)
I should add, for purposes of even greater accuracy: “The victim of the accident, Harry Whittington, 78, has suffered a so-called ‘silent heart attack’ since the hunting accident and remains in the hospital for observation. His condition is listed as stable” or whatever it is. The heart attack is part of the story and should not be minimized – nor should it be maximized, which is what “The VP shot someone in the face” does to the whole incident, and which is my point.
TW: I’m so tired of getting up in arms about this…
XJ,
I was replying to topsecretK9 but I appreciate your take on the comment.
It takes a day because the VP’s office needs to have time to gather, cull, properly parse, coordinate and reconstruct the fact that the vice president shot a guy in the face.
Almost, Actus. You almost got it right. Here, let me help you:
It takes
a day30 hours because theVP’sFirst Lady’s office needs to have time to gather, cull, properly parse, coordinate and reconstructthe factthe suicide note that thevice presidentWhite House Deputy Counsel left behind beforeshot a guy in the faceshooting himself in the mouth with a .38 caliber pistol.No need to thank me.
Peppered? Do you watch the Daily show? They dealt with that frame.
If the release had been that the VP had shot his friend. They would have gone with that. If the release had been ‘peppered,’ I think they would have gone with that too.
The point is that NOT releasing is what gives the media more of a chance to frame it. Because they don’t have anything to go with—you’re not giving them the frame.
And that’s why we were attacked on 9/11
According to the NYT (a dubious source, I know) the accident took place around 5:30pm, and the SS notified the Kenedy Co. Sheriff’s Department by 7:00pm.
I question the timing.
actus:
(a) Nope, I don’t watch the Daily Show. It’s all Cartoon Network, all the time, around here.
(b) I call moving goalposts. Your first objection was that the story was not immediately released, indicating the Bush administration’s arrogance and disregard for the American public. Then it was that the non-immediate release suggested a coverup, and what could they be hiding?. Now it’s that the non-immediate release gives the media too much leeway, and the Bush administration is stupid for not taking the initiative to cut them off at the knees.
(c) What?
TW: Can we get off this dead horse yet? (Not the right metaphor, I know, but I’m trying to work with the Magical Word Generator.)
So “frame it” is a euphemism for just make some shit up?
It’s where I get ALL of MY news.
Luv,
Actus
I think its a silly argument that waiting is how you get the media to NOT frame things. Waiting lets the media frame things. If you want a particular frame, you have to push it. Quick. And soon. That’s why its so odd that they waited. It’s probably just plain old incompetence. “lemme handle this.” kinda stuff from dick.
TV news at least. Why watch other tv? Its awful
I’m a little late to the party here, but from where comes the accusation that Cheney, because he likes secrecy, delayed releasing the news, thus making the conspiracy accusations inevitable? It’s his own fault, you see. Or maybe there WAS a conspiracy?
This is my problem: there were a lot of people there, they all knew about it. Medical teams were notified immediately and so they knew about it, the local police were notified immediately, and so they knew about it. Again, lots of people were notified immediately, lots of people knew about it. Any one of them could have called the media if they thought there was a reason.
Cheney, meanwhile, is understandably upset about shooting his friend has as his main concern his friend’s health and well-being. (Does anybody doubt this? Does even the most out of control moonbat doubt that Cheney is at least biologically human and possessed of human attributes?)
Is it such a scandal that he didn’t think to tell the media? Why would he even think it was his job considering how many people knew coupled with the fact of his own close, emotionally distressing involvement? So he initially left it to someone else, so sue him.
How stupid, cold, insensible and ruthlessly suspicious does a person have to be to think there’s something sinister about telling the media the next day?
Part of the media’s reaction can be laid at the feet of embrassment. They have relied upon press secretatries to spoon feed them for a very long time. Now, when one doesn’t, they find they have no idea how to report.
Actus,
What if you were at the Brokeback Mountain Dude Ranch engaging in one of your many “cowboy-on-cowboy” orgies, and one of the “riders” leaves the “pen” to change into some clean chaps and then after 5 minutes, returns – unannounced. And what if while you’re receiving your much-awaited rogering from – we’ll call him “Hank”, your colon gives way to the will of your late-lunch beans ‘n franks and you spray all over the Cher portrait. And what if at that same moment, our freshly-chapped rider walks into your line of fire, unbeknownst to you because you’ve got a guys balls popping you in the face while he’s giving you the Arabian Goggles?
What’s the headline if you immediately alert the media?
And that’s why we were attacked on 9/11
Either that, or Hillary!’s gurl-frand Jamie Gorelick got a bit memo happy. Hard to say. Maybe those Congressional hearings on Able Danger will clarify things. Heaven knows the befuddled Lehman’s and partisan hack Ben Veniste’s on the 9/11 “It’s under the big ‘W’” Commission didn’t.
How stupid, cold, insensible and ruthlessly suspicious does a person have to be to think there’s something sinister about telling the media the next day?
Over to you, Actus.
actus, that’s just silly: your “Waiting lets the media frame things” would only apply here if the media had found out on their own. The Cheneyites went to the media with the story, presumably in the frame they felt was appropriate and (not insignificantly) in the frame that’s supported by the facts, and the national media has been slavering all over itself since then trying to reframe the story as a conspiracy, coverup, or evidence of total dopery.
How would any of this have changed if Cheney’d rushed to alert the media from his BlackBerry in the ambulance, besides the fact that he would’ve been using a cellphone with heart monitors and stuff going, no doubt prompting solemn headshakes about how “framing the story” was more important to him than his friend’s well-being?
TW: really, this is too easy. (That’s better, Magical Word Generator.)
Goodness gracious, fellas. That Dr. Pepper burns when sprayed out my nose. Not to mention the keyboard.
Good time had by all.
But you think ‘the media’ is this one unit. Its not. The national media, the 24 hour cable news talking heads, didn’t learn from the whitehouse. They learned from some paper in corpus christy. They didn’t get hte white house’s frame on it.
The problem with your analysis is that it was not the cheneyites but mrs. armstrong. And they just tipped A local paper. Not everyone got the Cheney frame.
Its looking like its more incompetent than sinister. As in ‘what were they thinking’?
Good time had by all.
No way actus!? Does your posse include guys that actually like a little shit-spray in the face? Doooooooooooode.
How about:
Actus: I had one spritzer with my sack-lunch.
?
The press has been at war with GWB and Cheney since at least January 2001.
This is just more of the same.
I have given up all hope that the press could ever behave like grownups and do straight factual reporting. Ain’t gonna happen.
Can’t … type … gasping … need air …
[shit, that’s funny.]
Near as I can tell from this discussion, “frame” is interchangable with “spin” here. And actus point is because the White House didn’t put a positive spin on the story, it is okay for the media to put a negative spin on it?
[shit, that’s funny.]
blind squirrel + luck = nut
FWIW, now that Mr. Whittington is out of the hospital and sorry for the mistreatment of the Vice President (duh! MSM, didn’t you see this coming?)
CNN has repositioned the “poor 78 year-old victim cruelly shot by rat fink Veep” BACK to his pre-shooting status….drum-roll please
“The 78-year-old Bush-Cheney campaign donor”
We can all “Move-On.org” now.
At the risk of jumping into this thread very late, and to badly (I apologize) paraphrase Churchill:
“Never have so few, made such utter asses out of themselves, in front of so many.”
Its looking like its more incompetent than sinister. As in ‘what were they thinking’?
Actus: what’s incompetent about it? Incompetent would be delay in calling for medical help, which he didn’t. Incompetent would be delay in in calling the authorities, which he didn’t.
Are you really suggesting (with a straight face) that if Cheney had immediately rung up NBC to report the accident, denying you this particular bone, you wouldn’t be seizing on something else just as enthusiastically?
In short, I question your good faith in making this complaint.
actus:
The national media learned it, in essence, from the reporter who got the lucky break of taking the phone call, which was the “Cheneyites” in the person of Mrs. Armstrong – I obviously need to work harder on my faux-conspiracy wordmongering as well as the heavy-handedness of my irony. The “Cheney frame” is what Mrs. Armstrong reported to the Corpus paper. (Also, as I said before, it’s the frame that fits the facts, conveniently enough.) That the national media have spent the last, what, five days attempting with very limited success to reframe the story is their own waste of time – nothing to do with the White House and its “message machine.”
Explain to me how “releasing” the story to the national media would have had a different result. But considering that even with official reports, even with Mrs. Armstrong’s statement, even with Cheney’s own words on the record, the vaunted national media have still been running with the “What did they have to hide? The VP !Shot! !Someone! in the !Face!!,” if you start out with, “They would have run with the White House frame” is not going to get you very far with me.
Are you really suggesting (with a straight face) that if Cheney had immediately rung up NBC to report the accident, denying you this particular bone, you wouldn’t be seizing on something else just as enthusiastically?
Actus would never go so far as to take a positive 100% position on anything. The wooooorldly, irony-drenched and amorally superior transnatprogs don’t think that’s too kewl. Superior beings don’t deign to provide mere solutions to worldly problems. No, undistilled negation is the highest, purest expression of the superior conscious.
You forgot Socratic, toungueboy. The irony-drenched and amorally superior socratic transnatprogs exist to demonstrate superiority by asking questions.
Subtle, insightful, prodding, inquisitive, delicate, need-to-be-asked queries. Or nobody else would. They being superior and all:
You are sooooo right, 6Gun.
And would that wrapper have been from a White Owl or a Dutchmasters?
Its incopetent that they left the media speculating, framing, without the VP’s frame. Ari Fleischer was saying it was a bad idea.
Right. A pretty lame frame. You got to back that stuff up.
We’d just be left with talking about how the VP shot someone in the face. Not how the normally good with the message bush white house bumbled the press release.
Actus,
I thought we were talking about how David Gregory threw a hissy like a runner-up on Tony night. What did I miss?
– Well with the “victim” himself going front and center, and “apologizing” for the trouble the accident has caused Cheney and his family, I guess that pretty much sends this opportunity for “perception bending” by the moonbats and the Royalty press completely out the window. Notice the timing: perfectly with the VP and presidents speeches today. Damn that Rove is good.
– Gear for hunting party including 28 gauge, plow boots, orange jacket, pocket flask and GPS unit – $1200….
– 5 days of moonbat lunacy and Regal press public whine-a-thon – priceless….
TW: Wonder if RemCo will follow up with a “Cheney “A” team great white hunter” action figure….
The guy that got shot is apologizing. That one I like.
Your programming is defective.
tw: Perhaps the stamp-less VP was plastered.
Still waiting, actus, for your views on two things:
1. Why, when the initial report to a credentialed journalist(TM), albeit for a small newspaper, came from an eyewitness to the accident, and when the police report backed up that initial report, did the “national media” continue to attempt to reframe the story to connote a different set of facts for five days (and running)? (Note that I said “connote.”) Your “A pretty lame frame. You got to back that stuff up” says exactly zip, particularly when it’s apparently been repeatedly been backed up.
2. From my own previous:
Mud sometimes gives the illusion of depth.
— Marshall McLuhan
SB: changes
turn and face the strain
The guy that got shot is apologizing. That one I like.
Yes we know ACT, liberal’s don’t apologize…they look for someone to blame or sue. So of course you can’t relate. You think we thought you could? Whittinging is gracious, you are a liberal…big dif.
BTW weird observation (admittedly on my part) out of all the liberal “monikers” commenting on Blogs, I think “Actus” is the most Darren from Bewitched like moniker I’ve rune across. There is just not one variation that wants to stick. It’s kinda weird.
Holy Crap! You can’t make it up, I click over to Drudge (after my sue comment to Actus) and low and behold, here is Alec Baldwin
at Puffington Host doing his best Scary Larry impression, but of course it’s lawsuit now, natch:
So, I suppose the question is…what kind of civil trial will we see, or not see, between Cheney and Whittington? Whittington is certainly no stranger to a court room and to civil litigation. Will Cheney pay him off, preemptively? Will they go to court? I would imagine if a guy with a few beers in him shoots you in the face on a hunting trip, how could you turn down that opportunity?
Really, that’s the question? Well OF COURSE IT IS IF YOUR ARE A LIBERAL.
– Alec Baldwin is one of those Hollyweird denizens who confuses being able to read lines from a script a grownup has prepared for you with actual original thought. In other words a Liberal….
Alec Baldwin is one of those Hollyweird denizens
My dorko hubby placed prominent as extra on a HBO filmed LBJ “Path to War” movie filmed at CA capitol ( prominent because A-He’s a dork, B- a ham C- a bartender for which he paid off the crew (we think) C- He has a wicked widows peak (think eddie munster) that turned to pay dividends –very 50’s — anyhoo he got 3.6 seconds (of what we, compiled as a family and told him) was some freaking great, if not the best EMOTING we’d ever seen.
Baldwin was a “MAIN”. Spy hubby said that the prick talked his cell the whole time NEVER listening to what people were politely trying to tell him.
And incidentally…when did he stop beating Kim Bassinger? It would seem …oops my bad there has to be some sorta of bad civil divorce happening there no?