White House under fire in Cheney shooting accident

This is yet another example of the MSM if not quite at it’s worst, at least approaching that neighborhood.

President George W. Bush knew hours after Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a fellow quail hunter but the White House came under fire on Monday for not making the information public until the next day.

Notice here, the story has nothing to do with any of the circumstances of the hunting accident in question, but essentially the MSM’s concern with it’s own nose gettin gout of joint because THEY weren’t IMMEDIATELY informed of EVERYTHING, INSTANTLY!

Of course they didn’t think the V.P. was dong anything important enough to have coverage on before this, and, although ALL accidental events are regretable, this one actually had a pretty good outcome, all things considered – no permanent injury or loss of life.

In a testy exchange with reporters on Monday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan was bombarded with questions about the propriety of a private citizen making public a shooting incident involving the vice president and whether Cheney had followed White House protocol.

Let’s se now – a private owner reporting an accident that occurred with no one engaged in and sort of official action, on non-official status, on private property. What Executive Branch function applies here? None that is noticeable to an observer with enough ability to find their own backside without a flashlight. OK, maybe that DOESN’t apply to MSM reporters – never mind. To illustrate this inability, consider the following:

“The vice president spoke with Mrs. Katharine Armstrong, and they agreed that she should make that information public. She was an eyewitness. She saw what occurred and she called her local paper to provide those facts,” McClellan said. Armstrong said it wasn’t until Sunday that she telephoned the Caller-Times. She did not notify the national media or the White House press corps

Isn’t there a reason why they are called “reporters”? Doesn’t the job description involve GATHERING NEWS in order to then report on it? It isn’t necessarily anyone’s job (unless they are a PR flack or press secretary) to hand out information to reporters on a silver platter.

An additional thought: the MSM is squawking about the timeliness of the information. Is there anything that this 18 hour delay did that had a deleterious effect on the state of the nation, or the state of your life? — Nope, not to me either!

Here in South Dakota “upland game bird” for pheasant especially, hunting is a very BIG deal indeed. In fact, the Veep himself has availed himself of the opportunity to pursue the noble pheasant in South Dakota on occasion. Accidents like the one in question have been known to occur occasionally in the hunting environment.

In the normal course of events, an accident with no more seriousness than this one would probably be covered in the local county paper, and not much else. Sort of like what is described above my Mrs. Armstrong – something to note, but not THAT big of a deal!

Dare one venture the thought that the REAL agenda here happens to be taking maximum advantage of finding and using ANYTHING to try to flog the administration with? Sort of smells that way to the Chief.