The Cheney Hunting Non-Story

Unbelievable how insane the White House press corps is behaving after Vice President Cheney accidentally shot a fellow hunter while after quail earlier this week. "Why weren't we notified for 18 hours?" they ask. No, make that, they DEMAND to know. The idea that Cheney somehow had an obligation to notify the national news media right away is just stupid. This was a hunting accident. A private affair. Get over it.

For what it's worth, the owner of the ranch that Cheney had been hunting on told the Vice President that she was going to go ahead and call the local newspaper, to which he said, "fine," and that was that. But the national press corps is still outraged that they didn't get the scoop. Where's my violin? Also, according to the V.P., the police told him on the phone that they'd be out at 10am the next morning (the accident happened at 5:30pm) and he reportedly told them, "make it 8". So where's the big conspiracy?

Mona Charen at Townhall.com does a much better job at lambasting the press in this situation than I could. Check out her column; it's a riot.

Fox News's Brit Hume conducted an interview with the Vice President about the incident, and Fox has it on their website. The two parts I watched were about 5 minutes each and worth the time to get Cheney's side of the story, straight from the horse's mouth. Hume guides the Vice President through the minute details of the incident, did a nice job.

Contrast that with John Gibson's later interview on Fox of former DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe on the subject. McAuliffe was livid and couldn't stop himself from lobbing all kinds of really conspiratorial-sounding rhetoric out there. He admitted he hadn't even heard the interview with Cheney, yet suggested all kinds of things, such as the possibility that the V.P. had been drunk when the incident occurred, and that it was in fact some sort of cover-up that he'd waited so long to report it to the media.

I have never hunted birds, but I used to shoot skeet and trap. One thing I remember from that experience was that different kinds of birds fly in different kinds of patterns. I remember that quail start from the ground and go up, unlike others which might just fly across your field of view, higher up in the sky. Mr. Cheney said that he and a fellow hunter had separated from Mr. Whittington, who had gone over toward a quail he had downed. At one point Cheney heard/saw some quail off to his right flying up, turned quickly and pulled his shotgun trigger, seeing Whittington getting hit and falling as he did. Mr. Cheney said during the interview that he cannot get that image (of Whittington falling) out of his head, as we would expect a reasonable, moral hunter to feel.

And today, the man who was shot, Harry Whittington, met with the press and explained HIS side of everything. He was fairly eloquent and at one point actually apologized to the Cheney family for having caused so much aggravation.

So someone please tell me where is the story, here? The story is actually just one more obvious example of hateful Democrats overreacting to a potentially negative story about the White House, trying to drum it up to generate as much negativity as possible. I'll bet they're so proud of their accomplishments.

A Public Sign From God?

Fox News is reporting on a story from Boston wherein the family of a young man who died in a car crash asked for some sign from God that the boy was at peace in Heaven. They got it: A billboard advertising tickets for the Red Sox showed several happy fans celebrating a homerun from a game last October. The most prominent fan was -- believe it -- this deceased young man.

If you can get past these three dorky Fox in the Morning co-anchors, the comments from the parents are pretty interesting. Watch the video here.

Democrats: Sinking to a New Low

Yesterday was the funeral of Martin Luther King's widow, Coretta Scott King. On hand in Atlanta were President Bush and the First Lady, as well as former presidents Clinton and Carter, and George H.W. Bush. Many members of congress were also present, as were various religious leaders from Atlanta, and Jesse Jackson.

President Bush got up and gave an eloquent and charitable 10-minute eulogy of Mrs. King, rightly praising her and her husband for their contributions to civil rights in America. He then sat down and the liberals took over.

You might think that one of the last places where Americans of both parties can be Americans first, politicians second, would be a funeral. I mean, we threw out national disasters when Hurrican Katrina hit, right? Democrats were tripping over each other to get to a microphone and blast the Bush administration for incompetence and racism in their response to that emergency. But no, now funerals are apparently fair game, too, as former President Carter wasted no time in taking potshots at President Bush during his eulogy. Carter brought up the government-sanctioned (Democratic government-sanctioned) wiretapping of Dr. King and his wife in the 60's in an effort to slam President Bush, who is involved in a battle over wiretapping of potential terrorists. He also made a despicable comment that said flat-out that the Bush administration is racist when he commented on all the black deaths in the southern states when Katrina hit a few months ago. This from a former president. Amazing.

Then an early civil rights leader alongside Martin Luther King, Rev Joseph Lowry, got up to speak -- again, these are eulogies for Coretta Scott King -- and got a huge crowd response when he asserted that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and yet the Bush administration is happy to go to war and spend money there, all the while ignoring the poor in our own country. Again, despicable.

Dan Burrell at commonvoice.com had this to say about these two speakers:

Joseph Lowery is a has-been activist who can only make headlines these days by dredging up the past and being "over-the-top" in his rhetoric. Jimmy Carter was one of the most disgracefully weak and inept Presidents in the history of the republic. Years of building stick houses for Habitat for Humanity and running to elections in third-world countries may have rehabilitated his image, but his Presidency remains (for those of us old enough to have lived through it) a testament to his incompetence. I remember 18% interest rates, the Iranian hostage crises, a dead economy and his Mr. Rogers sweaters and blue jeans in the Oval Office. Ronald Reagan took about 20 minutes in office to restore it's dignity, authority and respect.

Patrick Hurley at theOneRepublic.com had some good comments, too, in his article, "4 Windbags and a Funeral".

Look, if you want to disagree with the government's policies, I'm fine with that. But let's keep it adult-like and charitable, and let's remember that politicizing, and taking cheap shots at the sitting President of the United States, at a funeral, is beyond classless and should never, ever, ever be done. Even if you think the POTUS is evil or a complete fool, you don't make comments like this at a funeral. Period. This is common sense, folks, isn't it?

The Islamic Cartoon Mess

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims all around the world have been rioting, now, for weeks in protest of the Danish (and later, global) publication of a dozen cartoon drawings of their prophet Mohammed. Most of these cartoons were totally innocuous. Three or so were provocative. But provocative or not, the Muslim response has been completely inappropriate and over-the-top. They are rioting; burning down buildings; getting people killed; marching with signs like "Europe - Your 9/11 is Coming" and "Behead the Publishers"; and similarly outrageous statements. They are making death threats everywhere, and for what? Because Islamic law supposedly prohibits the creation of any images of Mohammed. Note that the people drawing, and the companies publishing, these cartoons are not Muslims. That doesn't seem to matter to the Muslims, though, as I guess they think everyone should follow their rules.

Ann Coulter has an article on all the violence on her website this week:

In order to express their displeasure with the idea that Muslims are violent, thousands of Muslims around the world engaged in rioting, arson, mob savagery, flag-burning, murder and mayhem, among other peaceful acts of nonviolence.

I think the more interesting story here, though, is that most of the American media refuses to publish these cartoons. You can see them on a large number of blogs, but not on any television programs or many newspapers. The L.A. Times claimed they were going to run them, then backed off. Even supposedly conservative Fox News, when Michelle Malkin was being interviewed, cut away to video of protestors as soon as she held up a posterboard of all the cartoons in front of her for the cameras to film.

What is with all this cowardice? In every case, the media outlet claims it's out of "respect for Islam," yet respect for religion is a new thing for these outlets. You see anti-Christian stuff on TV all the time (most recently in the now-cancelled series, "The Book of Daniel," where Jesus is portrayed as your basic hippie idiot and a priest as a drug addict). So what's with the supposed sensitivity? Is anyone buying that? Anyone?

Mark Steyn at the Chicago Sun-Times has written a really humorous piece on all the "respect"

When Tony-winning author Terence McNally writes a Broadway play in which Jesus has gay sex with Judas, the New York Times and Co. rush to garland him with praise for how "brave" and "challenging" he is.

...

NBC is celebrating Easter this year with a special edition of the gay sitcom "Will & Grace," in which a Christian conservative cooking-show host, played by the popular singing slattern Britney Spears, offers seasonal recipes -- "Cruci-fixin's."

No mention, of course, of any non-violence by Christians. The hypocrisy is just unbelievable. Steyn's piece is funny; he points out very clearly where this is leading as far as media capitulation is concerned. Read the whole thing.

The Crusades are coming. Again.