Wednesday, February 15, 2006

The Bush White House: Walking and chewing gum at the same time.


There's a great right-wing talking point down south about how the news of Dick Cheney shooting his hunting partner in the face took its time coming out because, gosh darn it, everyone was just so concerned about victim Harry Whittington and, come on, their only priority was to make sure he got proper medical attention and they were all just, like, totally obsessed with Whittington's well being and that, finally, and only after all that was taken care of, then folks could turn their attention to the mundane details of, you know, explaining what happened.

This is, of course, an interesting contrast to the days immediately after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, during which the Bush administration seemed to have history's shortest attention span ever when it came to looking after the victims (emphasis added):

After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including [Richard] Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate.

So ... the dust had not even settled in the streets of New York and the neo-cons running things had already forgotten about the victims and were looking for someone to kick the crap out of.

"But wait," you whine, like the snivelling wanker that you are, "that's not fair. They can look after the victims and start military planning at the same time."

Really? Those folks can do two things at once? Not if you listen to White House spokesweasel Scott McClellan, whose entire talking point is based on the contention that no one could spare the time to announce the accident while they were all still focused on Whittington's medical care. Apparently, thousands of 9/11 victims can look after themselves, while one rich, wounded Republican lawyer requires the entire administration's undivided attention.

It's a good thing the press corps has such a short memory. Otherwise, stuff like this could be, you know, embarrassing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the lawyer was much worse off than reported. They were in fact making sure he didn't die because that would be like, bad press and stuff. That and Cheney's bender had to wear off before they called the cops.

Anonymous said...

Even if one assumes that everyone was totally focused on this issue, Cheney has his own media relations staff and his own press briefing office; a thirty-second phone call to them could have put trained spin-masters on it, rather than leaving it up to the woman who owned the property.

And really, Cheney and his secret service were too busy caring for this guy? None of them, last I checked, were medical professionals; what exactly would they have been doing?