Appalled

A reminder of how an open, democratic, pluralist republic is supposed to work.

Former White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater criticized Vice President Dick Cheney Tuesday for delaying the release of information about his hunting accident on Saturday, saying Cheney “ignored his responsibility to the American people.” He told E&P he was “appalled by the whole handling of this.”

“The responsibility for handling this, of course, was Cheney’s,” Fitzwater, who served as presidential press secretary for George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, told E&P in a phone interview from his Maryland home. “What he should have done was call his press secretary and tell her what happened and she then would have gotten a hold of the doctor and asked him what happened. Then interview [ranch owner] Katharine Armstrong to get her side of events and then put out a statement to inform the public.

“They could have done all of that in about two hours on Saturday. It is beyond me why it was not done this way.”

Gee. Ignored Texas hunting laws. Ignored the fact that Mr. Whittington looks nothing like a quail. Ignored his responsibility to the American people.

Back when Fitzwater was press secretary, the White House had something that hasn’t been a big priority with the current administration – a plan.

We had a very specific plan if the president or vice president were involved in any kind of incident like this,” he told E&P. “It was a very precise plan of who would call who and how the information would get out.”

And…

“Secondly, it would have been confined to the vice president. By not telling anyone for 24 hours, it made it a White House story. Now it has become ‘when was the president notified?’, ‘why didn’t he put it out?’ It becomes a story about the White House handling of it.”

You almost get the sense that everyone involved wanted this thing kept quiet. But anyone who watches any TV cop drama knows that admitting someone with wounds caused by a firearm gets the police involved. By all rights, Cheney should have been arraigned on A&B charges. You would have. I would have.

Discussing the plans in place when he was in McClellan’s job, Fitzwater cited an incident in the early 1990s when George H.W. Bush was at Camp David for the weekend and collapsed, sparking a need to transport him to the hospital. “The statement was on the wires going out to the country before the helicopter had left to take him to the hospital,” Fitzwater recalled. “I can’t believe they didn’t have a similar plan here. It is all Cheney, he is the key that has to start all this. I am appalled by the whole handling of this.”

I get the sense that, God forbid anything bad should happen to an administration official, instead of going live with the information, Fox News and AM right-wing talk radio stations will start playing “somber music“.