a lefty’s log

as most folks have heard by now, vice president cheney is caught up in a crazy shooting scandal that occured this weekend on the ranch of a rich campaign contributor. that benefactor found himself the bearer of birdshot as his just desserts, and the office of the vice president decided not to tell the public about the incident until 22 hours after the fact.

now if he waited to act solely upon the best interests of mr. whittington, there may not be such an uproar. cheney’s office did make a statement to that effect at first.

but this story is simply not to be believed. there is just too much of a pattern of keeping unkind matters under wraps. matters such as the secret meetings with top energy producers when forming the nation’s energy policy, meetings with medicare lobbyists for that corporate giveaway, halliburton’s involvement in the no-bid contracts in the rebuilding of iraq, his lesbian daughter (gasp!). nobody knows what else he’s orchestrated, or what other skeletons lie in the cheney closet, for that, too, is classified.

on this secrecy, chicago tribune columnist clarence page writes:

This is particularly true of Dick Cheney, whose penchant for privacy borders on the pathological.

This tendency began to show itself “big time,” as Cheney might say, during the Persian Gulf war. As secretary of defense, he declared a press blackout that kept reporters from filing news accounts for days, rendering them worthless to their editors back home.

Under Cheney, the Pentagon’s press pool system corralled more than 150 reporters away from the action so that none produced a single eyewitness account, according to a post-war report by Patrick J. Sloyan, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his Desert Storm coverage.

–Clarence Page

some commentators suggest that this latest debacle is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

this morning as i was driving home from work, npr reported that cheney feels as if he doesn’t have a responsibility to say much on the matter. “he’s not running for president, so he’s not accountable in that sense,” said reporter juan williams. (emphasis mine)

please goto the npr website and listen to the story for the particulars (real player or windows media player required. click on the red “listen” button):

Analysis
White House Criticized for Handling of Shooting Incident

by Renée Montagne and Juan Williams

Morning Edition, February 15, 2006 · Renee Montagne talks to Senior Correspondent Juan Williams about the heated exchanges between the White House press corps and White House spokesman Scott McClellan about the timing of the release of information on Vice President Dick Cheney’s hunting accident.

–npr.org

isn’t impeachment a form of accountability?! this is the last straw! if there was ever a statement to get one’s dander up, that does it! what is accountability? merely a chance to lose your job at election time?

heap this story on all the other scandals of this administration: the katrina bumbling, energy policy backpedaling, libby-gate, tax-cuts for the wealthy plus massive cuts in programming for the poor, unfunded (and worthless) mandates like the “no child left behind” policy, WMDs and the great granddaddy of them all: the iraq war.

if you’re with 60% of the rest of the nation and the listeners of 14 february episode of the npr program “on point,” you’ll agree that this administration’s incompetence knows no bounds.

the birdshot story is still developing. will america’s desire to hold bush & cheney’s feet to the fire develop any muscle?