Media Matters Exposes CNN’s Morton on Biased Comments about Cheney and Kerry Hunting
by Pamela LeaveyMedia Matters took on CNN’s Bruce Morton’s report on hunting and politics, that aired during yesterday’s Situation Room. Morton commented that President Bush “likes to hunt quail with family and friends” and Vice President Dick Cheney “loves to hunt,” but — using language that echoed that of Cheney during the 2004 campaign — said Sen. John Kerry “spent time posing with guns” during the 2004 presidential campaign, and that “voters probably saw more of him pursuing exotic sports, windsurfing and so on.”
Morton’s jab echoed language Cheney used during the 2004 campaign to attack Kerry as effete and elitist.
Kerry reportedly has been a hunter since the age of 12.
The kicker for me in the Media Matters expose was the part about Cheney’s hunting habits which are vastly different from those of John Kerry. Cheney evidently hunts for the pure purpose of making the kill, one would have to question just what was done with all those birds shot by Cheney…
Also, as was widely reported in 2003, Cheney and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) took part in a controlled bird hunt on a Pennsylvania game reserve, in which farm-raised birds were released from nets right in front of the hunters. According to a December 28, 2003, Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch article, Cheney alone shot at least 70 birds, and the entire 10-person hunting party shot 417 birds.
John Kerry on the other hand is an avid environmentalist who as noted above has been hunting since the age of 12. In a May 2003 Washington Post article profiling Kerry as 2004 presidential contender (John Kerry: Hunter, Dreamer, Realist), the WaPo notes, “John Kerry eats dove. Even better, he shoots them. From behind the stalks of a Southern cornfield, he’ll watch them flutter and dart, and fire.”
The Chicken Hawks spent a lot of time portraying Kerry as anti-gun candidate who simply posed with guns, as Media Matters points out, but in fact, as the May 2003 WaPo article notes, Kerry’s friend Ivan Schlager described him best when he said, “He is a damn alpha male.”
Now ask yourself this, when was the last time anyone heard Dick Cheney described as “a damn alpha male”? Dick “5 deferment” Cheney, was just caught on February 11 breaking “several basic rules” of hunting — “too many hunters, no dog, and hunting from a vehicle.”
Kerry on the other hand went hunting back in December with “some friends, including old Swift Boat pal Jim Wasser.” They were “out by 4:45 a.m. Tuesday. Temperature: 19 degrees. Wind: 30 mph. Kerry, armed with a Benelli shotgun; Wasser, and six others set the decoys on a pond and jumped into two blinds. At sunup, three ducks screamed in and the crew nailed ‘em with their 12-gauges.”
Maybe it’s just the country girl in me, having grown up in rural Massachusetts, I don’t see the glory in hunting from a car, there’s nothing sportsman like about it actually. It certainly seems that if anyone is posing with a gun, it’s Dick Cheney and obviously he needs to take a few lessons in hunting safety.
While Dick Cheney, his Chicken Hawk pals and their MSM lackeys take pleasure in distorting the truth about John Kerry, I’d like to see anyone of them go to toe to toe with Kerry out on a hunt, windsurfing, skiing, snowboarding, playing hockey or climbing a mountain.
Because the proof is in the pudding, as they say… and when a Vice President can’t go hunting without a medical team near by, and the media parrots old tired lines from a man who hunts from a car, there is no competition. Dick Cheney is and always will be a Chicken Hawk. John Kerry is “a damn Alpha Male.”
UPDATE: It should be noted that Time took a shot at Kerry in their latest on Cheney’s “accident”.
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You know what? As far as I am concerned once you SHOOT a human being, who the f@ck cares what you think anymore. Dick Cheney has lost all credibility, not that he had much. That Pompous arrogant SOB has not even taken responsibility for what he did. That is the part that ticks me off the most. He is the perfect example of why we need gun control. Careless senior citizens who cannot tell the difference between a human and a bird and do not take responsibility for what they do, should not have a license to carry a gun. I have more contempt for this man then I do GWB and I didn’t think hat was possible until now.
Sandrakae
“Careless senior citizens who cannot tell the difference between a human and a bird and do not take responsibility for what they do, should not have a license to carry a gun.”
Ain’t that the truth! And then some…
By the by, you crack me up when you are pissed!
Pamela,
“Kerry, … stands 6-foot-4. He rides a Harley, plays ice hockey, snowboards, windsurfs, kitesurfs..”
Snowshoeing is way too tame for Kerry. I do agree about seeing some of those wimps try to keep up with JK. Harley? Ice hockey? Windsurfing (These are the people who don’t understand changing direction due to prevailing conditions. In sailing it is called “tacking”, not flip flopping). I’m pretty sure he still skis – there was footage in Going Upriver from when he was a kid doing downhill.
Personally, the alpha male thing is more likely ADHD.
One of the theories on ADD is that it is the way our brains had to work when we were hunting clans. It is not an attention deficit. It is attention distraction- you hear the slightest noise or see the smallest motion – that the hunter needs to spot game. Then the hyperfocusing that
is also part of ADD takes over.
As far as I’m concerned, JK is an excellent example of how ADHD can be a great plus in times of turmoil and change.
The ability to pick out patterns, paths, link unrelated information into new insights…
Then there’s the contrast between JK knowing how to dress all kinds of game, with Dick who likes shooting 70 birds in one day. Remember the buffalo?
Ginny
Duh, I fixed that snowshoeing – should have been snowboarding!
It’s ridiculous that CNN did this. I’m glad Media Matters caught it. Gave me a good reason to rant a bit.
Pamela,
Have you heard the new, expanded, version of the moving pellet? It had been in a blood vessel and ended up in the heart. When you get hit with that many pellets… really bad luck.
Presumably the pellet is now at the bottom of his right ventricle and hypothetically unlikely to get ejected. If it is ejected, it will go to a lung, get lodged in a blood vessel with a diameter slightly smaller than the pellet, and cut off all the blood supply causing the tissue to die in a fair chunk of a lung lobe.
They might be able to put a filter in that is designed to stop the clots caused by atrial fibrillation from getting to the lungs. I don’t know – and they probably don’t either – if the filter would withstand the pellet. Especially if the pellet fell back into the pulmonary artery and kept getting ejected into the filter. Well, stupid me, they are doing conservative treatment….
Note to the hospital: do yourselves a favor and stop dribbling out the facts.
Pamela,
CNN HIRED GLEN BECK??? This is what happens when you sleep too much in a situation like this. Really uhbelievable shtuff happens. Excuse me, I haven’t even found all my marbles and now the teeth are on the floor again.
Different kind of hunting than the big boys.
Ginny in CO Says: February 14th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
Oh my… not good.
Speaking of CNN, how’s this for a headline -
“Cheney prays for hunt victim” if it sets off visions of Cheney on his knees at the altar, think again… “Cheney called Whittington on Tuesday afternoon to offer his “thoughts and prayers,” the vice president’s office said.”
Talk about over dramatization. I wish I could do a screen shot, the headline is on the CNN homepage right now.
Cheney maybe has learned a thing or two about prayer—like praying the guy doesn’t die.
Also, I remember that hunt where they slaughtered those birds back a couple of years. I saved the article from the newspaper because I was so disgusted. I believe it said the birds were supposedly given to food banks or something but when they checked that out, they could not find any confirmation. The birds were just wasted—gross and wrong.
The fake hunting, fake ranches, fake cowboy pres, rich gated community types—if only we could have spread this throughout middle America during the election campaign. But, clearly, we have a fake media, too, which stopped the real info from getting out.
For example, in Montana during the campaign which I saw with my own eyes, the little local stations were running the Bush propoganda (canned story lines) which we now know about and nothing about Kerry. And when my son traveled around the state with his orchestra, he discovered the motels only had FOX.
So in the places where the real people of this country would have been completely disgusted about what these people are all about, the repubs masterfully controlled everything about their image. And they destroyed Kerry’s.
I know we are saying that this hunting story may be covering up other horrible things like the Valerie Plame issue and Cheney’s involvement….BUT…
I think this story could finally break open and expose to all of those people like my brother in Montana the truth about Cheney/Bush and their buddies. And this is an extremely important breakthrough or awakening for the 2006 elections.
I predict Bush’s approval will go down just because of this. And if we can show–or get the MSM to show–that Bush has participated in these types of “hunting” parties….
BINGO!
Another Black Eye For The MSM
In the absence of any pressing news these days — other than Iran’s nuclear weapons development crisis, the election of Hamas terrorists in Palestine, ongoing worldwide Muslim riots and killing in reaction to a cartoon, Al Gore’s near sedition while …
Dick Chenney has been a power hungry, insidious cancer on america ever since these clowns stole the president office from Gore.
but when you shoot a 78 year old man full of metal, then say its not serious, then try and blame the man for your shooting him because he didn’t make any noise that’s just down right evil.
The media should be covering other stories better, Plamegate, wiretap gate, Iran, but Chenney made a fool of them and now the sharks want to take on the old crocodile.
Chenney won’t resign, and bush can’t afford not to have him around. Why? Because for now on when ever something goes wrong with adminstration or its accused of being secretive Rove has a new fall guy>Chenney.
My the den of thieves has no boundaries.
I do hope the old man gets better though.
There are people still defending Chenney’s actions and those who do need some mental help. Perhaps this will show some light on canned hunt and how cruel they really are.
Pen
This canned hunt thing is just downright grotesque and should be illegal, private property or not.
And yes, meanwhile there a host of other scandals that need to some coverage. My head is spinning from it all. Sensory overload – to much bad information!