WTF? Monday

Welcome one and all to another edition of WTF? Monday. Mind the mess, I’m redecorating.

So it’s been a relatively slow day for WTF? but I’ve managed to find something I think is ridiculous. It’s fairly obvious, but my reasoning is probably not.

Today the mainstream media is at the table glutting itself on Dick Cheney’s unfortunate pull of the trigger. Though I live in a red state, our much vaunted Atlanta paper (more to the point its web news site, since I wouldn’t pay to use the actual paper one to line my cat’s litter box) is one of those good old lefty rags. This afternoon (post press conference) they’ve added a comment section where the mindless pinko sycophants of this city can take their turn towing the party line between trips to moveon.org and being shorn by their local union rep…BaAaaAaa!

I have no problem with people being interested at a man being accidentally shot by the Vice President of the United States, and I see no problem with it being plastered all over the web, TV, radio and papers. Great, you finally have something to justify creating that ass groove in your overstuffed news room office chair.

The problem is that since they can’t seem to get any real evidence or factual proof of any of the myriad of wild allegations against the entire Bush White House they see fit to manufacture a mountain out of every mole hill. WTF?

By the end of the week there will be fifteen different conspiracy theories about “why” Cheney shot the man on purpose, what he and Halliburton had to gain by shooting him, and how this accident just proves that he’s not fit to be Vice President.

The sad thing is they started the minute this whole story came out. Not about the shooting itself (no, there were too many good facts available to blow the fan-fair right out of the water). The current “outrage” comes from the fact that it took them 22 hours to notify the public of the shooting.

Let’s examine this: First we’ll look at the law, since that’s what matters in these cases. I’ll use a quote from an article this morning: Hunting parties are not required to report accidents, said state Parks and Wildlife spokesman Tom Harvey. The state penal code requires people to report fatalities, which would be investigated by law enforcement. Hmmm, let’s think, accident happens, accident victim taken to hospital, victims relatives notified, victim’s state of health assessed, proper authorities brought in to investigate, PUBLIC NOTIFIED. Sounds right to me.

The real problem the press has here is that the FACTS were gathered before they could get their grubby paws on the story to twist it. Besides, there is nothing in the first amendment that entitles the press to any story on a time frame. If the authorities were notified immediately (and let’s face it, they authorities were already there in the form of about 20 secret service guards) and the family was notified immediately (his wife was THERE when he was shot) then what else really matters?

When the latest celebrity idiot slams their Porches into a light pole while high on Meth and Coke, do the paparazzi get pissed off and raise hell because they weren’t called along with the police? This comes down to a simple but reoccurring theme in the current political climate. If your opponent doesn’t do anything to call them out on, make something up.

The best part of this whole thing is that several reporters are going to try to make their careers off of this one and come out looking like the asses they truly are.

I’ll finish this one on a lighter note with a question posed by one of the AJC bloggers:

“Would you rather go hunting with Dick Cheney, or driving with Ted Kennedy?”