David Gregory: Why the Cheney Story Matters
by Pamela LeaveyFollowing up on Ron’s post earlier on the media and the Cheney story, David Gregory, Chief White House Correspondent for NBC, has a post on his blog on “why the Cheney story matters.” Here’s a few quips from Gregory:
I’m in the business of getting information — as much of it as possible. The public and I don’t always get as much as I think we deserve, but I keep trying. I also try to demand straight answers. Covering politicians, I have to work harder to get them. I have not made any judgments about the facts of this story as it pertains to what happened on the Armstrong ranch. I have stuck to reporting the facts. I do, however feel it’s appropriate to push hard for full and immediate disclosure from our country’s highest leaders about their conduct — public and private. My view is, as elected officials with unparalleled influence over the lives of the American people, the President and Vice President owe the public information about their activities. I see myself as a proxy for the public that has raised questions about what happened and why the Vice President did not immediately disclose it. Furthermore, when a sitting Vice President shoots a man, it’s a helluva story — worthy of public notice and discussion. Therefore, I think it’s appropriate to question the White House about why the Vice President chose to disregard the President’s normal procedures for public disclosure. Mr. Cheney, in my view, acted as if he had something to hide. He also chose to allow a witness to this accident and the White House press secretary to spend three days portraying this as the fault of the shooting victim, Harry Whittington. Wednesday, Mr. Cheney changed course and took the blame. That invites press scrutiny.
This episode was also emblematic of how the Vice President chooses to communicate with the press and by extension the public. It also revealed tension within the White House between the staffs of the President and Vice President.
Gregory also notes the whining from the right wing news sources and blogosphere that alleges a “left-wing, overly cynical, prissy White House press corps” — which Gregory announces is “nonsense”…
Yet the debate playing out in the blogosphere, cable airwaves and on talk radio pits the Vice President against an allegedly left-wing, overly cynical, prissy White House press corps in a tizzy because it wasn’t the first to know and angry because it hates the President and Vice President anyway. This is nonsense. If you believe an accidental shooting by Vice President Al Gore would not be met with the same press scrutiny, I think you are not being honest with yourself. Have you Googled transcripts from the Clinton administration at the height of the Lewinsky scandal? The pursuit of information at the White House is often tense. We push hard for it. Maybe you think we pushed too hard in this case. Maybe you think there was no grave harm in waiting to learn the facts of this incident for a few days. I can accept that. The way we do our business is not always pretty and we should be accountable for that. I happen to believe, however, on balance, our dogged pursuit of lots of information, all the time, is a good thing. I view the White House press corps as a proxy for the public. It provides fodder for important debates in this country. But then again, I do have a bias: I’m in the information-gathering business.
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And I cannot shout this loud enough—this story resonates with red state hunting America.
This is why the Bushies want this story gone and buried. It hurts their credibility on everything they want to do and everything they have done since being in office.
Janet
i was listening to L.A.’s progressive talk radio earlier and the local Saturday afternoon host was talking about that. He said that this shows their character and most American’s vote on the character unfortunately, not the issues. They have been effective of attacking the character of Dems with out real cause and this story is a factual show of who they really are.
There is such an incredible moral code with hunters and fishermen. Safety is number one–you never drink before a hunt–you always have the proper license—you do not kill more than you need–you do not hunt from a car–you never ever kill more than what your license allows–you eat what you kill or make sure it goes somewhere where it is needed–and if you make a mistake, you contact the game warden immediately and fess up.
People who do not follow good hunting behavior are considered the scum of the earth and never to be trusted for anything outside of that.
This was pounded into me from the time I was born–it is very powerful.
Janet
There are no morals amongst the crowd hunting at Armstrong ranch. Good hunting and fishing behavior was not instilled in them at a young age. I’m not sure that good behavior in general was.
That hospital appearance by Whittington was still another in an endless string of bizarre Republican photo-ops and stage shows. It was all about Il Duce Dick, not his victim, the guy who stood there with purple bruises and pellet holes on his face, coughing frequently. The whole sorry spectacle was designed to gloss over the VP’s ineptitude and subsequent coverup. And yet the whole absurd performance was covered straight by the conventional media, as if there wasn’t anything at all phoney about it. The Texas aristocracy with connections to big oil and Haliburton, meanwhile, nodded approvingly and said nothing further.
The conventional media just went along, as usual, but progressive blogs got it exactly right and so did Jon Stewart, David Letterman, Jay Leno and other comedians.
I suspect that the tremendous laughter and applause that came from these guys’ jokes was a sort of psychic outpouring of relief that at least SOMEONE out there in TV land is eager to tell the plain truth about what’s going on around us.
The US government has gradually descended into moral bankruptcy and criminality. Fascist swine like Karl Rove and the rest of his Republican black shirts lie by necessity, it’s the only way they can herd their sheep. They have blood on their hands by lying their way into a pre-emptive, unnecessary war. They’ve got a leader who has achieved cult status. He’s literally adored, revered. To their subservient and ignorant followers, neither Bush nor Cheney can do any wrong.
The rest of the world looks on, and wonders. How on God’s earth can this sort of thing happen again in an allegedly civilized country? Didn’t anyone learn anything in the 40s? And again in the 70s?
Apparently not.
I think Dick Gregory is one of the few reporters with a spine out there.