Cheney's Painful Apology

One of the silliest complaints I've been hearing from the right about the Cheney shooting story is that the press is making too big a deal over it; that it shouldn't have made national news. With due respect to the differences of opinion, are you shitting me? Get off it. One can't fail to wonder what these same complainers would be saying if Cindy Sheehan or John Kerry accidentally shot somebody. That they're still dragging out Chappaquidick and Kennedy, four decades after the fact, as some kind of defense of Cheney's current carelessness shows the paucity of that argument.

The number two man in our government shoots somebody, it's news. That's why they call them public figures. It would have been much smaller a story if he simply issued a statement immediately, didn't allow Matalin to blame the victim, and if Cheney had had the simple courtesy to get on the tube and apologize to the family for the tragic mistake. It wouldn't have made past two news cycles under those terms.

But Cheney had his own plan, going against the advice of his peers in the White House and delayed not only the statement, but waited four days to take responsibility and say he was sorry. No doubt he was waiting for the public opinion analysis before he decided whether he needed to account for his actions or if he could just slip away in the fog of scandals that's always wrapped around this White House.

And of course it was very useful in deflecting attention from his bigger troubles. Now the reporters are asking him about this tragic accident instead of his orders to Scooter Libby to breach national security by disclosing the contents of NIE briefing papers to the press.