Word: cheneyism
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Vice President Cheney has always prided himself on imperviousness to Beltway hysteria, since he has no plans to seek the top job. But it was that very detachment, which President Bush has generally seen as an asset, that helped produce the missteps in the aftermath of Cheney's weekend hunting accident. The PR crisis has now thrown the White House off its intended message - heard much about health savings accounts lately?- and raised questions about its ability to handle a crisis...
...Cheney stayed out of public sight for three days after the Saturday evening shooting of 78-year-old lawyer Harry Whittington, with news photographers catching surveillance-style shots of the Vice President hustling into the side door of the West Wing. Finally, under pressure from Bush aides and much of Washington's Republican establishment, Cheney decided to sit down Wednesday afternoon with an interviewer whom the VP appears to trust, Brit Hume of Fox News...
...Among the new facts the Vice President disclosed in the interview:? Whittington, dressed in orange, was "down a little ways" in a gully. "The sun was directly behind him - that affected the vision, too, I'm sure," Cheney said.? Cheney went up to Whittington and said, "Harry, I had no idea you [were] there," but his friend "didn't respond" at first, possibly because he was stunned.? Whittington was wearing hunting glasses that protected his eyes. He arrived at a nearby emergency room within less than an hour after leaving the ranch, then was taken by helicopter to Corpus Christi...
...that's has been Cheney's Achilles' heel as veep-he doesn't hear the politics of things anymore. He didn't hear them in the first term much when he held secret meetings with energy lobbyists, refused to detail the sessions and then fought the matter through the courts as White House aides cringed. He didn't hear them on torture and ran way past the fence line last year in trying to prevent the enactment of John McCain's reasonable insistence that Army interrogators stick to the rulebook. And I'm betting he didn't hear them last...
...hunting mishap that involved Vice President Dick Cheney took a more serious turn this afternoon. But it won't be clear just how serious until some key questions are answered...