Question posed as this morning’s editorial board meeting was breaking up:
"If the vice president shoots someone in the forest, and only the Secret Service is there, does it make a sound?"
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Zen veep
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All The News That Gives You Fits
The leftist media didn’t want to discuss Vince Foster being shot to death in Fort Marcy Park, on the way back to his office from picking up an airline ticket home.
Good old Lee, showing his true colors again. After a number of posts purporting to engage in serious discussion of public issues, he does what every other Bushie suck-up does: Goes back to blaming Clinton.
I blame Bush.
Since it appears to be slow today, I have a question.
Since the Muslims in general are in an uproar and setting fire to anything western, how about this for a response.
Do not rebuild the
American businesses. Close all American govt facilities… leave the area. Take out (by military means) all communications satillites that serve the muslim world. Cut all outside contact with the west.
Stop all foreign aid to these countries. All not just a few programs.
Sit back and watch the revert 800 years as seems to be their heartfelt desire.
Sound good?
Clinton apologists just hate that there is no scandal, real or contrived, which was not perpetrated by Goat Boy.
The same phony journalists who pretend that the public must know about Cheney’s hunting accident are the same ones who didn’t want to hear what Linda Tripp was telling them about her boss, Vince Foster.
Lee, I don’t want to hear about Cheney’s hunting accident OR Linda Tripp.
I care about public policy, not gossip. So what does that make me?
In response to your Zen question, I think it makes a sound only if the major media reported or retorted it. “Major media” would include the old big three (ABC, CBS, and NBC), the NYT, WaPo, maybe the Chicago Tribune, and I guess CNN. You don’t need to have drunk a fifth to realize that the fourth estate would be upset that a third-tier newspaper in the nation’s second-largest state carried the first report.
That Cheney or his minions chose Fox News for his first interview probably annoys the not-so-lean and hungry White House press corps.
Yet I was surprised to find an op-ed in the WaPo equating this incident and its aftermath to Chappaquiddick until I noted its author, who’s usually all wet anyhow.
Cheney’s never liked the press and has no reason to court it since he’s not running for office again.
This kind of thing happens whenever the news is slow. The world is at peace, the Middle East is quiet, not much is happening in the world of sports, so the press has to occupy itself with something, no?
Amen Brother Brad! At least two big stories (and arguably more important to our republic) that are not being covered by the DC press because of the cheney hub bub: Asbestos buyout and Patriot Act negotiations.
I hate to post anonymously. I usually just read and scream at the computer screen, but I’ve screamed at the TV every time I’ve turned it on this week. Maybe posting will relieve my frustration….
Anonymous –
Great points. The Senate’s machinations with the asbestos bill are especially noteworthy. The Chicago Tribune reports
Republican Sen. Arlen Specter still has hope, but it looks as though the compromise arrived at through sweet deals and special benefits for specific companies will not prevail. That is good and bad.
The good news is that sweet deals for some companies have failed and a blank check from the US taxpayers has been pulled back. The bad news is that more companies will be driven into bankruptcy, fewer real victims will receive the care and damages they are entitled to, more alleged victims without symptoms will receive funds, and the plaintiffs’ bar will continue their competition of who’s got the biggest yacht or most expensive automobile.
Even though federal courts have warned for some time that Congress must take action to end the asbestos litigation nightmare, I’m now of the opinion that a little more time might produce a better deal, thanks mainly to the efforts of one woman who switched careers from nursing to law and ended up on the federal bench.
While not widely reported, last year U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack caught some really prestigious law firms fudging the facts in silicosis suits. As a nurse Judge Jack could do a little research to find out that silicosis is pretty durn rare. She dug a little more and found that lawyers, doctors and X-ray screening companies had “manufactured” some 10,000 bogus silicosis suits “for money.”
The real hoot is that the lawyers were so lazy that for the silicosis suits they re-used their asbestos victims.
You go, Noah! Thank goodness the plaintiffs’ bar is looking out for you and others! Out of 8,629 plaintiffs claiming injury from exposure to silica, 5,174 – that’s 60% – had filed claims seeking (and probably receiving) recovery for injury from exposure to asbestos. The odds against having both illnesses are rather high, higher than winning Powerball. (Did you get your ticket? It’s for the children…)
Although I’ve never met her, I think I love Judge Jack.
Brad –
If you are truly breaking with the phony outrage about the hunting accident, why are your last 5 topics about it?
In case you missed the news…
Meanwhile, Al Gore is like Jane Fonda in North Vietnam, visiting the Mideast to lie about our police and military abusing Arabs for no reason.
And more captured tapes of Saddam Hussein plotting terrorism with WMD against America aired yesterday.
A. Well, it’s not my last three posts any more, although I guess it was when you wrote that.
B. News flash: Al Gore isn’t vice president now. I’m not that interested in what he does or says any more. Are you?
C. I hadn’t heard about the Saddam thing. Maybe I would have known about it if Brit Hume had reported it during his broadcast last night, instead of signing off with a tape clip of Saddam ranting in court, with a funny voice-over saying something like, “I didn’t get a valentine from YOU, or from YOU, or from that guy in the balcony, either!” Mr. Hume thought it was hilarious.
D. Well, duh! Because everybody keeps talking about it. This is a blog; that’s what it’s about. Have you seen me write about it in the actual newspaper?
I see…this blog let’s you write about what you really want to discuss, like… Dick Cheney winging a fellow hunter with some birdshot.
That’s why so much of America listens to AM radio to get the news which is ignored by the personality hustlers.
Lee –
Why don’t you get one of these and then challenge Brad to a couple of rounds of this. (I don’t have the eye-hand coordination to score too well, but it is a hoot.)
Combine a cheap video game with an insignificant topic and you get something on which I really don’t want to waste my time.
You don’t here the media sharks bringing up Chappaquiddick or Vince Foster for comparison. Of course, these objective journalists only voted 93% for Clinton (Roper Poll).
Lee –
I did note the Chappaquiddick connection poorly made in the WaPo above.
Here’s an interesting analysis of media response to the Cheney mess compared to Vince Foster’s death. The author samples stories over the five days after the death from WaPo and other reporters – Pincus, Marcus, Isikoff, etc. — and concludes: There’s nothing inherently wrong with this reporting and that’s the point. When reporting on their Democratic Party brothers in arms they are respectful and professional.
He then samples the Cheney stories and finds a significant difference.
Mike, one difference is that Vince Foster was killed by himself, and Whittington was nearly killed by Cheney. Another difference is that you and the guy who wrote the article you link to are lying. The reporting on Foster was much more lurid than on Cheney, even though Foster’s death, though tragic, was not suspicious, and Cheney’s actions were highly suspicious.
The media carried much lurid speculation and many lurid accusations about Foster’s death for many years. Due to your dishonesty, you ignore that fact, and due to the dishonesty of the author of the article you link to, he ignores that fact.
However, speculation or no speculation, accusations or no accusations, the fact is that Vince Foster killed himself. That’s tragic, but there was nothing suspicious about it.
Whittington, on the other hand, was shot by Cheney, after Cheney had been drinking. We don’t know how much Cheney drank, nor to we know when he stopped drinking, because he misused his governmental position to prevent the police from interviewing him. Cheney initially tried to blame the victim, and coached Ms. Armstrong to lie about what had happened. Cheney then didn’t say anything to the public for days, and when he did, he spoke to a “news” organization that went to the unusual length of releasing a falsified video of the interview, one that expunged his reference to his drinking.
Lee, it’s disgraceful that Gore dared to criticize the Bush administration. I think that if you think Gore’s actions undermined the war on terror, you should go do something about it. You can’t stop Gore from doing what he did, because he was perfectly within his rights, but you can do something to help make up the damage you perceive that he caused. Your local recruiting office is open on Monday and stays open all day. You are free to head down there and join the military and fight in the war you cheer for all day long.
Or, you can continue to do absolutely nothing to back up your beliefs, other than to collect handouts paid for by the taxes of people you despise.
Al Gore didn’t criticize the Bush administration – he lied about our police and military abusing Arabs.
I am backing up my beliefs right here, fighting the Seditious Left. My military ID badge is clipped to the BDU jacket in my closet.
When you say “fighting the seditious left,” what you mean is, making disingenuous arguments and false accusations against people who disagree with you.
As far as taking any kind of action, expending any kind of effort, or making any kind of sacrifice, to stand up for your beliefs, what you’re going to do is absolutely nothing. Other than to continue to sit around, ignorant and shiftless, living off handouts from people you despise, the same way you’ve done every single day from the time you were born.
Is that about it?
If you disagree with the facts, expect people to laugh at you. Gore lied, was challenged by an Arab reporter, and admitted that every one of the Arabs “abused” by America had only been arrested or deported because they had expired visas… just like the hijackers did.
In the 180-degree dementia of Left Logic, we are accused of “living off handouts” by paying enough taxes to support the average Democrat family (whatever that is). It must be because I don’t pay 100%…yet.
Lee, Mary Rosh sits in her taxpayer subsidized cottage up in Taxachussets counting all of the SC tax dollars being squandered on the BIG DIG in Boston, MA. She is the kind of person who will whine and moan about her social security being cut if the raise of it is 4% instead of a raise of 7%. Typical democrat leech. Dont pay any attention to her as Mike C. notes she is a troll. Crossing her bridge must be truly scary, right Mary?
Lee, you can talk as much as you want about how Democrats supposedly rely on government support, but the fact is that the states that pay more in federal taxes than they receive in federal services are almost invariably the more liberal states, and the states that depend on handouts are the more conservative states. South Carolinians receive $1.36 in federal subsidies and services for every $1.00 they pay in federal taxes. People from New Jersey receive about 57 cents, people from California receive about 78 cents, people from Alabama receive about $1.60, and on and on. Look at it this way. What would happen to South Carolina if it were forced to depend on the initiative and industry of its citizens? Instant and total economic collapse.
If you really want to earn the right to badmouth liberals, quit taking their money. Look at your federal taxes, take an additional 36% of that, and send it to random families in places like California, New Jersey, Massachussets, Oregon, and other people living in the “liberal” states you despise.
Or you could continue to sit around, ignorant and shiftless as always, living off handouts the way you’ve done since the day you were born.
Dave, big dig or no big dig, the people of Massachusetts receive 78 cents in federal services for every $1.00 they pay in federal taxes. You receive $1.36 in federal handouts for every $1.00 you pay in federal taxes. Those are the facts.
The initiative, education, and industry of the people of Massachusetts allows them to earn enough to support themselves and you too. Due to your ignorance and shiftlessness, you require handouts from the people of Massachusetts to keep you from starving to death. Show a little gratitude.
Mary, citing useless statistics about one state getting more federal subsidies than another is really useless. Better to recognize who is getting the subsidies while becoming ever more dependent on freebies from Uncle Sam. The truth is these are your political colleagues of the socialist left. YOu cannot deny that. So no matter which state the “takers” live in, it is the hard working taxpayers of America who are funding this redistribution of income. Since 10% of the wealthiest Americans pay 70% of ALL federal taxes, we doknow who is funding the give-a-ways, don’t we?
Dave, you can talk about “useless” statistics all you want, but these are actual numbers describing actual distributions of money. It may be an article of faith for you that federal tax money flows to liberals, but the fact, backed up by statistics, is that it flows to conservatives. Think about it. I ask you again. What would happen to South Carolina if federal resources were evenly distributed, if South Carolina had to depend on the initiative and industry of its own citizens? What would happen to Alabama? Mississippi? Montana? Wyoming?
What if the people of Massachusetts, whom you despise so much while you greedily eat the food their taxes buy for you, had to support only themselves, rather than both themselves and you?
You can talk about welfare all you want, you can complain about liberals all you want, you can talk about leeches all you want, but you don’t back up any of it because it can’t be backed up.
The fact is that you are an ignorant, shiftless hypocrite. If you really don’t respect people from Massachusetts, quit taking their money. Anything short of that, and you will continue to be regarded with the contempt you deserve.
The solution is obvious: abolish all government redistribution of wealth.
The fact is that the lower 49% of tax filers pay no net income tax. 100% of taxes are paid by the top 51% of filers, with a very small number of people paying 25% of the taxes.
That 49% of freeloaders is the target base of liberal politicians. Their goal is to make freeloaders into their large majority.
Another reform would be to merge Massachusetts, Connecticutt and Rhode Island into one state….or split Georgia into 3 states.