Oh by the way, three!
Since I couldn't get a link to the Oregonian, David Sarasohn was kind enough to send me the article to share with you:
And so, after all these years in the dark, we now know where to go to find out what's going on in the Bush administration:
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
Can't wait to see what they've got on the wiretapping lists.
The Caller-Times, of course, broke the story on Vice PresidentCheney's blasting a hunting buddy under the impression that he was aquail, or maybe a Democrat. The news became public only 18 hours later,when the owner of the hunting farm called the Corpus Christi paper to casually mention it - "You know, the darnedest thing happened out here today" - and ever since, the administration has been expressing astonishment that anyone would think that wasn't the standard way to release the news of a vice presidential shooting.
Word of Aaron Burr shooting Alexander Hamilton got out faster, even though in 1804, the Internet was down.
The first explanation was that everyone around Cheney was looking after the Harry Whittington, the wounded hunter, although nobody has ever had an injury that would benefit from the attention of a press spokesman. By Monday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan was insisting stoutly, "the vice president's office was working to make sure information got out."
It was not, apparently, working very hard. Not only was the press not notified for 18 hours, but it seems there was a delay before the president himself was told the vice president had shot a major contributor.
Bush political adviser Karl Rove, however, was told immediately, and spoke with the owner of the farm before she thought the episode might be worth mentioning to the Caller-Times.
In the Bush administration, nobody even gets shot without clearing it with Karl Rove.
Three days after the vice president showed he could spin around and hit a lawyer at 30 yards, Cheney had made no public appearance andtaken no questions. After Whittington's wounds led to a mild heart attack, Cheney's office released a statement that "The vice president said that he stood ready to assist," carrying the VP-ER image of Cheney handing the surgeon a scalpel.
By then, the White House was in full change-the-subject mode, with McClellan insisting earnestly, "We're moving on to the priorities of the American people," including "talking about how to make healthcare more affordable and accessible," even for people with medicalproblems other than getting shot by the vice president.
Which, of course, is a way of avoiding the question of how this should have been handled.
"If (Cheney's) press secretary had any sense about it at all, she would have gotten the story together and put it out," commentedMarlin Fitzwater, press secretary for Ronald Reagan and the first President Bush. ".ค.ค. It would have been the right thing to do, recognizing his responsibility to the country as a nationally elected official, to tell the country what happened."
But that's not the way the vice president sees things, inforesight or gun sight. On public information, Cheney's feeling is that if there's something we want you to know, we'll leak it.
That's the message from last week's earlier Cheney story, on the legal defense of the vice president's former chief of staff, I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, indicted in an investigation of leaks of classifiedinformation on CIA agent Valerie Plame to discredit her husband.
Last week revealed a letter from special prosecutor PatrickFitzgerald saying, "It is our understanding that Mr. Libby testifiedthat he was authorized to disclose (classified) information .ค.ค. to thepress by his superiors," Other sources reported that one of thesuperiors involved was Cheney. The two situations sum up the administration's approach to news management: information that should be public will be kept quiet if it's not politically useful, and classified information may become public if there's a political reason.
And sometime, Harry Whittington and Valerie Plame could get together to discuss being targeted by Dick Cheney. Maybe the story will break in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
David Sarasohn, associate editor, can be reached at 503-221-8523
davidsarasohn@news.oregonian.com.
The vice president's office: Scooter and the shooter
David Sarasohn
And so, after all these years in the dark, we now know where to go to find out what's going on in the Bush administration:
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
Can't wait to see what they've got on the wiretapping lists.
The Caller-Times, of course, broke the story on Vice PresidentCheney's blasting a hunting buddy under the impression that he was aquail, or maybe a Democrat. The news became public only 18 hours later,when the owner of the hunting farm called the Corpus Christi paper to casually mention it - "You know, the darnedest thing happened out here today" - and ever since, the administration has been expressing astonishment that anyone would think that wasn't the standard way to release the news of a vice presidential shooting.
Word of Aaron Burr shooting Alexander Hamilton got out faster, even though in 1804, the Internet was down.
The first explanation was that everyone around Cheney was looking after the Harry Whittington, the wounded hunter, although nobody has ever had an injury that would benefit from the attention of a press spokesman. By Monday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan was insisting stoutly, "the vice president's office was working to make sure information got out."
It was not, apparently, working very hard. Not only was the press not notified for 18 hours, but it seems there was a delay before the president himself was told the vice president had shot a major contributor.
Bush political adviser Karl Rove, however, was told immediately, and spoke with the owner of the farm before she thought the episode might be worth mentioning to the Caller-Times.
In the Bush administration, nobody even gets shot without clearing it with Karl Rove.
Three days after the vice president showed he could spin around and hit a lawyer at 30 yards, Cheney had made no public appearance andtaken no questions. After Whittington's wounds led to a mild heart attack, Cheney's office released a statement that "The vice president said that he stood ready to assist," carrying the VP-ER image of Cheney handing the surgeon a scalpel.
By then, the White House was in full change-the-subject mode, with McClellan insisting earnestly, "We're moving on to the priorities of the American people," including "talking about how to make healthcare more affordable and accessible," even for people with medicalproblems other than getting shot by the vice president.
Which, of course, is a way of avoiding the question of how this should have been handled.
"If (Cheney's) press secretary had any sense about it at all, she would have gotten the story together and put it out," commentedMarlin Fitzwater, press secretary for Ronald Reagan and the first President Bush. ".ค.ค. It would have been the right thing to do, recognizing his responsibility to the country as a nationally elected official, to tell the country what happened."
But that's not the way the vice president sees things, inforesight or gun sight. On public information, Cheney's feeling is that if there's something we want you to know, we'll leak it.
That's the message from last week's earlier Cheney story, on the legal defense of the vice president's former chief of staff, I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, indicted in an investigation of leaks of classifiedinformation on CIA agent Valerie Plame to discredit her husband.
Last week revealed a letter from special prosecutor PatrickFitzgerald saying, "It is our understanding that Mr. Libby testifiedthat he was authorized to disclose (classified) information .ค.ค. to thepress by his superiors," Other sources reported that one of thesuperiors involved was Cheney. The two situations sum up the administration's approach to news management: information that should be public will be kept quiet if it's not politically useful, and classified information may become public if there's a political reason.
And sometime, Harry Whittington and Valerie Plame could get together to discuss being targeted by Dick Cheney. Maybe the story will break in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
David Sarasohn, associate editor, can be reached at 503-221-8523
davidsarasohn@news.oregonian.com.
posted by Michael at
2:17:00 PM
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