Whittington Update

From the latest wire story:

Whittington said the shooting "was just an accident," and he was concerned all the media attention would give hunting in Texas a bad image, the report said.

On Polipundit yesterday, I left the following comment to an entry from Lorie Byrd:

The MSM meme seems to be particularly ill-conceived this time. Don’t any of them realize that the whole story disappears and they look foolish the instant Harry Whittington walks out of the hospital under his own power, looking robust and cheerful, and proclaims to the waiting media gaggle… who now have to cover it since they’ve made it such a big story… what a great guy Dick Cheney is, what a good friend he is, how much he cared about his good buddy Harry Whittington, how many times he called to ask how I was doing, how the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot, how Dick is a stand-up guy for taking the blame but, shucks, it was mostly my fault for walking up behind him without announcing myself, etc., etc., etc. Whittington is going to be solidly on the VP’s side on this and as any half-wit could realize, when the victim sides with the perpetrator against the media, the media loses.

As I surmised, Whittington is going to be way, way over on Cheney's side on this thing, making the media firestorm look silly and the Democrats who are claiming that this represents Bush-Cheney "lying" look like the over-reaching fools they are.

Cheney and Whittington and the Press

The MSM has lost its collective mind. Are these people serious? Are they behaving like normal adults?

Here is what we know about the Vice President's shooting of his friend, Harry Whittington.

1. It was while they were hunting quail.
2. They were using shotguns and birdshot.
3. Hunting birds may not be a sport that many of the MSM engage in -- witness many of the comically uninformed reporting -- but it is a fairly normal activity in much of America, including Wyoming and Texas, where Mr. Cheney has spent much of his life.
4. Mr. Whittington's injuries, while significant, particularly to a 78 year-old man, are not life-threatening, and by all accounts he will pull through this just fine. (As to his "minor heart attack," my reading of the reports is that it was a very, very minor cardiac event, amounting to an irritation of the heart muscle by a piece of birdshot, that did not cause him any heart attack symptoms such as severe pain, sweating, etc., but only showed up as an event at all because they had him on a heart monitor as a precaution.)
5. All of the eyewitnesses report that it was an accident that occurred because Mr. Whittington was rejoining the hunting party unannounced, which is a no-no in hunting. (This does not absolve Mr. Cheney, but it certainly mitigates any conclusion that he was negligent.)
6. The Texas authorities investigated and concluded that this was a routine hunting accident.
7. There are, in fact, a lot of hunting accidents in Texas and elsewhere. They are unfortunate. But they happen.
8. Unless there are extraordinary circumstances, not applicable here, people do not have any legal jeopardy for hunting accidents. (I.e., for you moonbats on the Left, there is no crime here.)
9. The accident happened on Saturday evening at 5:30 pm in Texas. That's in the central time zone. By the time an ambulance got to Mr. Whittington, it was probably at least a half an hour later or (probably) more, meaning that it was after 7:00 in the Eastern time zone, where the White House is and the national press corps lives.
10. People... even people in the White House have lives. Saturday night is not necessarily the best time to rush out with a story, particularly when, at that point, no one knew what the facts were.
11. The morning after Saturday is generally called Sunday morning. Many people sleep late; other people go to Church. Again, people... even people in the White House... have lives of their own outside of work.
12. The story was reported early Sunday afternoon.

None of these facts would remotely constitute a story, much less a scandal, but for the fact that Cheney is Vice President. Because he is, it is, in fact a story. But it still isn't a scandal, and wouldn't be but for the irrational hatred much of the media apparently has for Cheney and the Bush White House.

In a normal world, without BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), the appropriate responses would be, "Wow, that's a terrible story, do we have any details about how Mr. Whittington is doing? How is his family holding up? Mr. Cheney must feel very sorry and sad that he was involved in his friend being injured... how is the Vice President holding up?"

Look, Dick Cheney is a highly successful man who has devoted much of his life to public service. He apparently has a very good marriage to a serious adult woman; he apparently has been a good father; he apparently is a good friend. He has never been indicted for or convicted of a crime; he hasn't been divorced; he doesn't still beat his wife, etc. What exactly has he done that makes him so hateable by the lefties in the press? Why can't any of them summon a concern for the human beings involved here?

The reaction of the MSM shows a lot more about them than it does about him.

UPDATE: Here is the report of the Texas game warden on the incident. What strikes me is that the form the report is filed on has explicit categories for exactly what happened here: "Victim covered by shooter who was swinging on game." That shows that the incident, while unfortunate, is not exactly a unique occurrence.

What is the Fuss About the NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program?

Here are statements by left-liberal Democratic statements from yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the NSA program for conducting electronic surveillance of calls from Al Qaeda to co-conspirators in the U.S., and vice versa:

FEINSTEIN: I'd like to make clear that, for me, at least, this hearing isn't about whether our nation should aggressively combat terrorism; I think we all agree on that. And it's not about whether we should use sophisticated electronic surveillance to learn about terrorist plans and intentions and capabilities; we all agree on that. And it's not about whether we should use those techniques inside the United States to guard against attacks; we all agree on that.

FEINGOLD:All of us are committed to defeating the terrorists who threaten our country, Mr. Attorney General. It is, without a doubt, our top priority. In fact, I just want to read again what you said. "As the president has said, if you are talking with Al Qaida, we want to know what you're saying." Absolutely right. No one on this committee, I think no one in this body, believes anything other than that, and I want to state it as firmly as I can.

SCHUMER: General Gonzales, I just want to make a couple of points that are important to keep in mind as we ask you questions. First, we all support a strong, robust and vigorous national security program. Like everyone else in this room, I want the president to have all the legal tools he needs as we work together to keep our nation safe and free, including wiretapping.

So let me get this straight. None of these people think eavesdropping on communications between Al Qaeda and its co-conspirators in the U.S. is a bad thing. Everyone agrees that we should be doing it. Apparently their only quibble with the NSA program is that President Bush and his administration did not ask the FISA court for permission to do the eavesdropping. (Begging the question of whether the Constitution permits an unelected judiciary to have a veto power over foreign policy, intelligence and military decisions taken by the President as Commander-in-Chief.) But many left-liberal commentators have also commented that getting FISA approval is "easy," implying that it is just a bit of paperwork, just a procedural hoop, a rubber stamp, and not a substantive check on the President's power to conduct foreign intelligence gathering operations. So I don't get it... what exactly is the fuss about?

The fuss is about the Democratic Party getting hoisted on their own petard. Last fall when the NSA story broke, the Dems made a big deal out of it because it looked like President Bush was faltering in the polls and they thought this could be a ticket to a victory in 2006. But, as the details got out -- largely through the blogosphere -- it quickly became clear that the story would actually help President Bush, because it would show him to be the kind of forceful leader who won't let bureaucratic red tape keep him from doing the right thing. (Ever notice how Hollywood movies, even from the lefties, never make heroes out of people who follow the rules, dot their i's and cross their t's, fill out the correct forms, etc.? Dirty Harry doesn't read Miranda rights.) But by then the Dems had committed to hearings that would drag the story out.

So you get the peculiar spectacle of supposedly adult Senators frothing that a program is "illegal" that they now also say is a good program that they want us to have. Why doesn't some Republican Senator just call their bluff and introduce legislation making what the President is doing explicitly legal and then dare Democratic Senators and Congressmen to vote against it in an election year?