Round 'n Round 'n Round We Go…

Oh, man. That darn Bush Administration is in hot water again! Looks like they're really taking some heat over this whole VP-accidentally-shoots-an-80-year-old-lawyer snafu. Why, it's in every paper and on every news website around the country.

Does anyone else see what's happening here? Let's take a step by step look at what's going on:

1. Cheney and a hunting buddy were involved in a hunting accident, the same kind that happened 44 times in 2003 and 29 times in 2004 (source).
2. Cheney and co. sought medical attention for the injured man, but didn't stop to first alert the press about what had happened.
3. The Media got its feelings hurt because it wasn't the first to know. Turns out a local news station was the first to get the scoop.
4. Because its feelings were hurt, The Media assailed White House press secretary Scott McClellan with all sorts of ferocious questions about what had happened, who was to blame, and why they hadn't been told first. In other words, a self-propelled media feeding frenzy.
5. The Media then report that the White House is "under fire" over the controversy.
6. This reporting leads The Media to ask more ferocious questions about what had happened, who was to blame, and why they hadn't been told first. In other words, the frenzy continues to escalate.
7. The Media then report the escalating frenzy and now the White House is really under fire.
8. This reporting leads to… Get the idea?

To put it in a nutshell, The Media is reporting on its own hysterics. They're the ones making a big deal out of this, and then reporting that it's a really big deal.

Accidents happen. That's life. Thankfully, nobody died.

For those of you who are historically informed (or old), you may recall that Ted Kennedy had a similar "accident" that went unreported for awhile. Liberals may want to hit the brakes (pun intended) a little before they run around damning Cheney for hunting carelessly or without the proper $7 stamp.

Here's the story, as far as most reports tell it. Kennedy got plastered at a party with five other men and six other women, jumped into his car with one of the women, who was not his wife, drove away heavily under the influence, plunged his car into eight feet of water, swam to safety while leaving his passenger in the car, walked to his hotel room, then went to sleep. The car was found the next morning with Mary Jo Kopechne's body trapped inside. Kenned never contacted the authorities, but changed multiple details of his story as several contradictions came to light. Some authorities believe the victim actually suffocated in the car hours after it sank, though nobody came to her rescue because nobody was told about the incident until the next day.

In my mind, not reporting a hunting accident to the press because you're on your way to the hospital is a little more excusable than drowning a woman and sleeping it off in your hotel room, leaving the police to find the body on their own.