Did you hear about how Cheney shot that lawyer he was hunting with? Really? Where did you hear about it? Oh, that’s right, absolutely everywhere on earth. I get that this is an important story, a story with legs, as they say, because it has all the theatrical elements the SCLM needs to pump up their ratings. Guns, intrigue, fowl foul play–it’s fun. It gives people an opportunity to tie in some broad themes, like in this AP story:
The shooting presents a new problem for the White House as it seeks to repair damaged credibility in a midterm election year in which continued GOP control of Congress hangs in the balance.
Of course, everything is couched in terms of political tactics rather than actual facts, but that’s par for the course. It strikes me, though, that, just before this quail of a story broke, there was another Cheney related development of import. One that related to a heinous crime committed for devious purposes. One that concerned a certain NOC agent named Valerie. From a CBS news story(February 9th):
Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who’s been indicted in the CIA leak investigation, testified that his “superiors” authorized him to leak classified information to reporters.
That’s a huge deal. Remember how revved up we were all getting over that? Libby’s superiors, well, gosh, that must be Cheney! Fitzmas Redux, get the popcorn! Then Cheney shot a guy and the attention-span challenged SCLM dropped that story like a bad habit. There is an upside, though, in that having Cheney in the public eye at all is good. After all, as the AP story above mentions:
Cheney, 65, whose ”favorable” rating was just 24 percent in a recent CBS-New York Times poll, has found himself in other storms swirling around the Bush presidency.
Wow, 24 percent is terrible. I suppose I should be thrilled he’s on TV at all.