This Ain’t Chappaquiddick!

The lengths to which the mainstream media and the conspiracy kooks will go in order to manufacture a scandal never ceases to amaze me:

(CBS/AP) President Bush knew Saturday evening that Vice President Dick Cheney had accidentally shot a hunting companion, but the information wasn't made public until the next day — by a private citizen — the White House said Monday.

Spokesman Scott McClellan said the vice president's staff was focused on making sure that the shooting victim, attorney Harry Whittington of Austin, Texas, was receiving adequate medical care after the shooting on the private Armstrong Ranch in south Texas. Whittington and Cheney were hunting quail together.

Cheney apparently did not see Whittington, and the vice president accidentally hit him in the face, neck and chest with bird shot.

So basically, the concern was not for the condition of Mr. Whittington, it was for the fact that Cheney didn’t immediately pick up a telephone and inform everyone in the Washington press corps that he had accidentally shot a hunting companion.

Compare and contrast the behavior of Vice President Cheney, to….Oh! I don’t know…Ted Kennedy:

Little over one mile away, the car that I was driving on the unlit road went of a narrow bridge which had no guard rails and was built on a left angle to the road. The car overturned in a deep pond and immediately filled with water. I remember thinking as the cold water rushed in around my head that I was for certain drowning. Then water entered my lungs and I actual felt the sensation of drowning. But somehow I struggled to the surface alive.

I made immediate and repeated efforts to save Mary Jo be diving into strong and murky current, but succeeded only in increasing my state of utter exhaustion and alarm. My conduct and conversations during the next several hours, to the extent that I can remember them, make no sense to me at all.

Although my doctors informed me that I suffered a cerebral concussion, as well as shock, I do not seek to escape responsibility for my actions by placing the blame either in the physical, emotional trauma brought on by the accident, or on anyone else. I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the policy immediately….

In the morning, with my mind somewhat more lucid, I made an effort to call a family legal advisor, Burke Marshall, from a public telephone on the Chappaquiddick side of the ferry and belatedly reported the accident to the Martha's Vineyard police.

So, Vice President Cheney didn’t notify the press corps immediately? Big Deal! Ted Kennedy didn’t even notify the police until the next morning, and then only after consulting with his attorney. Of course you never hear the press corps griping and moaning about what Ted Kennedy did. At least Cheney stuck around and made sure his hunting partner was cared for instead of playing the poor, pathetic victim on television for the sake of his political career.

Could this have been handled better? Sure. But I think history has shown it could also have been handled much worse.

Expose the Left has the video of the feeding frenzy at today’s White House Press Briefing.

Sister Toldjah and Michelle Malkin have links aplenty.

Tags: Cheney, Dick Cheney, Hunting Accident, Hunting, Politics, Chappaquiddick, Ted Kennedy, Whittington, Media Bias