The Beltway Comedy

I'm glad to see that the media fit over Cheney's hunting accident doesn't include Jay Rosen. The only complaint one can make honestly is that the story didn't make it to the White House press office until the next morning. But even that strikes me as faulting him for not making the White House Press Corps as the center of his consciousness. If he had fallen and broken his leg, would the news operations of the networks and big papers have interrupted other activities to get the story out? The major distinguishing fact was that there was a shooting accident that inflicted minor wounds on his friend. Charles Krauthammer rightly characterizes the reaction of the White House Press Hounds:

as a psychiatrist, the groups I ran for inpatient schizophrenics were far more civilized.

But surely there must be something in this that will arouse a national furor or get him out of office! Therefore, he should have invited a horde of reporters to invade his friend's home and right now. The problem with these people is that whatever you do for them will be taken for granted or turned on you somehow, while whatever you don't do is sure to bring yelps of indignation.