Cheney Rant
Ok, first, some comedy highlights of the Cheney shooting debacle...
- Day 1 of Daily Show coverage
- Letterman covers Cheney's press conference
- Daily Show update + White House press conference
Last night I was with a group of people, and was stunned to discover that they had not heard about Cheney's shooting incident. How could that have gone under anyone's radar, especially 3 days after the fact? But in catching up with the news myself, I saw a video of a Chris Matthews interview with Bill Maher posted on Crooks and Liars. Maher had a joke that resonated with me.
"I think its interesting that this is only the third worst thing that happened to Dick Cheney this week."
Here are the other two "worst things"...
1st, Scooter Libby said that his superiors told him to put out classified information. This is a pretty transparent claim by Libby that Cheney is at the top of the food chain regarding the outing of Valerie Plame.
2nd, Paul Pillar, the former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on Middle East until last year, accused Bush and Cheney of "cherry-picking" intelligence on Iraq to justify the decision to go to war (a decision that had already been made and needed justification) and ignoring intelligence that warned of the violence and chaos that would likely result from a U.S. invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
What I am realizing is that the circus around the Cheney shooting might actually be giving the administration cover from the two much more devestating stories that Maher made the joke about. The press are extremely aggressive in pursuing the shooting, which is a good thing. There is something suspicious going on about the delay in Cheney's reporting of the incident, as well as the scrubbing of the MSNBC article that had a quote about how alcohol was consumed by some before the accident. Also, the story is alternatingly funny and sad, yet always bizarre.
But my realization is that the shooting coverage is coming at the expense of attention paid to the other major revelations.
- Day 1 of Daily Show coverage
- Letterman covers Cheney's press conference
- Daily Show update + White House press conference
Last night I was with a group of people, and was stunned to discover that they had not heard about Cheney's shooting incident. How could that have gone under anyone's radar, especially 3 days after the fact? But in catching up with the news myself, I saw a video of a Chris Matthews interview with Bill Maher posted on Crooks and Liars. Maher had a joke that resonated with me.
"I think its interesting that this is only the third worst thing that happened to Dick Cheney this week."
Here are the other two "worst things"...
1st, Scooter Libby said that his superiors told him to put out classified information. This is a pretty transparent claim by Libby that Cheney is at the top of the food chain regarding the outing of Valerie Plame.
2nd, Paul Pillar, the former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on Middle East until last year, accused Bush and Cheney of "cherry-picking" intelligence on Iraq to justify the decision to go to war (a decision that had already been made and needed justification) and ignoring intelligence that warned of the violence and chaos that would likely result from a U.S. invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
What I am realizing is that the circus around the Cheney shooting might actually be giving the administration cover from the two much more devestating stories that Maher made the joke about. The press are extremely aggressive in pursuing the shooting, which is a good thing. There is something suspicious going on about the delay in Cheney's reporting of the incident, as well as the scrubbing of the MSNBC article that had a quote about how alcohol was consumed by some before the accident. Also, the story is alternatingly funny and sad, yet always bizarre.
But my realization is that the shooting coverage is coming at the expense of attention paid to the other major revelations.
posted by Sam Goldberg at 10:11 AM
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