It Is Not News

The furore over the Cheney hunting incident is starting to really frustrate me.

For once I find myself in the queasy and awkward position of being in almost complete agreement with the White House's position. The fact that Dick Cheney accidentally shot his hunting partner in an incident which happens all the time in that particular sport is not newsworthy and did not need to be revealed to the public. It's really not any more serious nor worthy of comment than when Bush fell off his mountain bike after colliding with a London Bobbie.

There is absolutely no evidence of the VP having any intention to hurt his friend. There is no insinuation that he was doing anything illegal while he was hunting (apart from a bureaucratic mistake resulting in him with the wrong type of hunting licence). There has been a blowup suggesting that he may have been incapacitated with alcohol after the inconsistency of his story with a spokeswomans' where he claimed to have drunk one beer and she vehemently said no booze was imbibed at all. One beer does not have any effect in the slightest on an individual's judgement (at least not from a legal standpoint) but Republican America's evangelical relationship with alcohol implies that one beer is all that separates an alcoholic from walking the walk and lying in a gutter.

With absolutely nothing wrong having taken place the major media is jumping on the only thing they can jump on. Why wasn't the information released sooner? Or, more accurately, why wasn't the information released to US? Now, the recriminations are coming that this issue is really a symptom of the far too secret White House. The actual incident itself wasn't so important but, like Watergate, it is the coverup that is far worse.

The explanations have been coming from the White House have been slightly inconsistent and maybe a little shabby but no matter how closely one looks at the inconsistencies there is nothing sinister that is hiding within them. There is no story therefore there can be no coverup.

This American administration has committed gross crimes in the past six years. It has cheated in elections. It has been deceitful in explaining its motivations and intentions for within the Middle East. It has deliberately weakened and manipulatetd international institutions such as the UN, The World Bank and The World Court. It has been unapolegetic for the criminal activity that have been committed by its soldiers. The major media have picked up on these stories at times but their investigations have never resulted in any signficant change within the White House. Whenever the media pester the White House spokesman with real probing questions he'll just answer a different question and ignore the issue until it goes away and it always does. All of this administration's crimes are consigned to the rarely browsed archives of the world's scrapbook. Occasionally the Administration will lose a battle and they'll scapegoat one of the foot soldiers such as Tom DeLay or Scooter Libby but it rarely happens.

The media have had real opportunities to get this administration in the past for real crimes and real incompetence but they've failed to expose the corruption at the heart of this regime. The hunting incident is not one of those crimes. By not letting go of this story they're giving the Republicans ammunition for their claims of Left Wing Media Bias. History has shamed the American right for their pathological attack on Bill Clinton's sex life. History will shame the left for their obession with Dick's hunting accident.