So the best that the press have been able to do with Cheney's hunting accident is whine that the White house didn't release information about the accident until 24 hours after it happened, and even then it was after a private citizen had told her local paper in Texas and the White House press corps had to ask.
Scandal #1 is Harry Whittington, the guy that Cheney shot. For Whittington is no stranger to the Bush administration. Bush family friend, financial supporter, and clean-up guy.
For the full story, you have to go all the way back to 1998, when Eliza May was Executive Director of the Texas Funeral Service Commission, and she was heading an investigation into the largest funeral service company in Texas, SCI. Houston-based SCI was run by Robert Waltrip, a longtime friend of the Bush family -- and in 1998, Bush was governor of Texas and just beginning his run for President of the United States.
Waltrip didn't like that the TFSC was investigating his company, and he had the political connections in state government to do something about it. He called in lots of favors, and May held her ground. This was starting to attract attention, at a time when Bush really didn't want a scancdal, so May was fired and replaced with -- you guessed it -- Whittington. Did you expect to find anything other than Bush cronyism? May in turn sued under the whistleblower statutes. Whittington settled the whistleblower suit, and quietly made the SCI investigation go away, cleaning up all of Dubya's loose ends for him and protecting his corrupt corporate friends. Bushwatch has a compendium of much of the press coverage of the whole thing as it was reported at the time.
Scandal #2 is their host, Katharine Armstrong, a registered lobbyist who has been paid to lobby the White House. Why exactly is Cheney hanging out with White House lobbyists?
Scandal #3 is Cheney's unyielding support for the NRA and its stalwart opposition to all gun regulations. Cheney and his cronies claim that guns are safe, and that hunting is safe, if you follow the correct safety practices. Well, Cheney is widely described as a very safe hunter, and he still managed to hit a 78-year-old man. Guns are not safe. Hunting is not safe. They need to be regulated. The press, and the gun control lobby, should be trotting out every stupid wrong-headed thing Cheney ever said about gun safety and making him eat his words. What a hypocrite. This is what the head of the NRA was saying on Saturday, at almost the exact same time that Cheney was shooting his lawyer buddy. And why is it that neither the NRA nor the White House web site offer a transcript of Cheney's keynote speech at the NRA annual convention in April of 2004? What exactly did he say that they don't want us to read?
The whole culture of Bush administration corporate cronyism and lying needs to end. These folks, simply put, have no shame.
(UPDATE: Alfred found the link to Cheney's remarks at the NRA meeting. Thanks!)
9:35:32 PM 
|
