Moonbat mediots meltdown over Quailgate: a recap
First, there was NBC’s David Gregory at yesterday’s WH press briefing. Video here. Transcript here:
[Gregory]: “Why was the White House relying on a Texas rancher to get the word of Cheney’s hunting accident out over the weekend, asked Gregory, accusing McClellan of “ducking and weaving.”
“David, hold on… the cameras aren’t on right now,” McClellan replied. “You can do this later.”
“Don’t accuse me of trying to pose to the cameras,” the newsman said, his voice rising somewhat. “Don’t be a jerk to me personally when I’m asking you a serious question.”
“You don’t have to yell,” McClellan said.
“I will yell,” said Gregory, pointing a finger at McClellan at his dais. “If you want to use that podium to try to take shots at me personally, which I don’t appreciate, then I will raise my voice, because that’s wrong.”
“Calm down, Dave, calm down,” said McClellan, remaining calm throughout the exchange.
“I’ll calm down when I feel like calming down,” Gregory said. “You answer the question.’
“I have answered the question,” said McClellan, who had maintained that the vice president’s office was in charge of getting the information out and worked with the ranch owner to do that. “I’m sorry you’re getting all riled up about.”
“I am riled up,” Gregory said, “because you’re not answering the question,”
McClellan insisted he understood that reporters deserve an answer.
“I think you have legitimate questions to ask,” the press secretary said. “The vice president’s office was the one that took the lead to get this information out… I don’t know what else to tell you… That’s my answer.”
Here’s more video from the Maul McClellan-fest.
Next up, the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank on Keith Olberman’s show, wearing a hunting vest and cap. So much for any pretense of objectivity on his part – not that I ever thought there was any before.
And lastly, we have DNC strategist and all around thinks-he’s-so-funny-man Paul Begala, sporting attire similar to Milbank’s while on CNN today, waxing indignant and talking about how he’d never let his son go hunting with Cheney – as if he would have considered it before. (Sidenote: I think I like California Conservative’s slightly Photoshopped version of that Begala pic 
).
In all seriousness, is there any wonder why there is so much distrust of the media these days? There shouldn’t be any wondering about it anymore, not after their manufactured outrage over the latest manufactured ‘scandal.’
(Hat tip for many of the above links to Ed Driscoll)
More: TV producer and McLaughlin Group regular Lawrence O’Donnell speculates that Cheney was drunk (via Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters):
“How do we know there was no alcohol? Cheney refused to talk to local authorities until the next day. No point in giving him a breathalyzer then. Every lawyer I’ve talked to assumes Cheney was too drunk to talk to the cops after the shooting. The next question for the White House should be: Was Cheney drunk?”
[…]
“I have never gone hunting with ultra-rich Republicans on a Saturday afternoon, but I have seen them tailgating at Ivy League football games, so it’s hard for me to believe that any of their Saturday lunches are alcohol free.”
Dave Pierre, also at Newsbusters, makes a great point:
Think back to 1998. Imagine a female newspaper reporter (not an opinion columnist, but a reporter, mind you) showing up for a television interview dressed in a beret and looking like Monica Lewinsky. Or a male columnist wearing a Clinton wig and holding a cigar. It never would have happened, because these people would have lost their jobs. Their employer’s credibility would have been shot.
Yep.
To update, here’s the latest on the condition of Mr. Whittington, the man the Vice President accidentally shot:
WASHINGTON – Despite the heart problem of the man wounded by Vice President Dick Cheney, doctors say removing the shotgun pellet from his chest probably won’t be necessary — and digging it out could do more harm than good.
It’s not unusual to live with shrapnel or other foreign objects in the body, even the heart, and specialists said it’s likely the pellet will scar over rapidly without causing further problems for Texas lawyer Harry Whittington.
Hospital officials in Corpus Christi announced Tuesday that Whittington had suffered a “minor heart attack” and was returned to the intensive care unit.
It wasn’t a traditional heart attack — no artery was blocked. In fact, the 78-year-old Whittington’s doctors called his arteries healthy, and he felt no pain or other symptoms.
What apparently happened: Doctors noticed an irregular heartbeat Tuesday morning and took Whittington in for an exam called a cardiac catheterization, threading a wire up from the groin to see an image of exactly what was going on inside his heart.
One of the pellets from the 28-guage shotgun that Cheney had fired had migrated to the heart, either touching or embedding into the heart muscle near its top chambers, called the atria. That irritated those chambers to cause the irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation.
But doctors also spotted inflammation — which always occurs when something foreign invades the body — that was causing a temporary block in blood flow, by touching or pushing the heart, explained Dr. David Blanchard, chief of emergency care at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial.
That’s what he termed a “silent heart attack.”
Here’s to hoping for a speedy recovery for Mr. Whittington.
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