Dick Cheney’s televised mea culpa—and his choice of venue—are well-mined by bloggers. Others wonder what the future holds now that Haiti has declared a winner in its presidential elections. And an off-the-cuff remark by Bryant Gumbel about the homogeneity of the Winter Olympics has some bloggers seeing red.
Outfoxed: Dick Cheney sat down for an exclusive interview with Fox News’ Brit Hume to address the hunting accident in which he wounded a friend. Bloggers greeted Cheney’s statements with sarcasm and sympathy and joined the mainstream media in commenting on the choice of Hume to conduct the interview.
SusanG at the liberal Daily Kos rants, “The scramble to paint Cheney—the shooter—as the traumatized victim of what he called ‘one of the worst days of my life’ knows no bounds.” She says Fox is the ” ‘Mommy’ network for the Bush administration—kissing the group’s numerous self-inflicted owies to make them go away.” New York lefty Bill Kavanaugh on Bill’s Big Diamond Blog lists some questions that have not been answered to his satisfaction, such as: “Why exactly did Armstrong outrank everyone at the White House and the Veep’s office in managing the delayed break of the news to the American public?”
Religious conservative Rick Moore counters such thinking at Holy Coast. “Just because Brit didn’t yell at him or have a preschoolers David Gregory-style tantrum doesn’t mean he wasn’t getting all the information from the Veep,” he says.
Paul at the conservative Wizbang blog found Cheney’s explanation for waiting to inform the press plausible. “If he had allowed this to get out ‘fast break style’ the media would have screwed it up completely. Totally and completely. Can anyone blame him for not wanting the story to come out screwed up?”
Missouri State University journalism instructor Andrew R. Cline at Rhetorica agrees that the press often values immediacy over accuracy and points out that Cheney spun the situation masterfully. “I can’t blame Cheney for making an excellent choice in how to play this situation. But that excellent choice would have been unnecessary had he simply played it straight-up from the beginning. He’s worse off for his (political) choice to remain silent for so long,” he says.
Canada-based blogger J.T. on Parkdale Pictures wonders:“Why did Cheney choose such a biased and agenda-driven network as opposed to a main network like NBC or CBS? What about a press conference?”
Bloggers are discussing the Cheney interview here.
Haiti hails to the chief: Haiti has declared former President René Préval the winner of last week’s presidential election after controversy surrounded the ballot counting. An agreement was reached in which ballots that were not filled in would be thrown out, giving Préval enough votes to avoid a run-off.
Tatalie on My Insides says the decision was unfair and could have disastrous consequences. “Guess what is first words were? He asked to repremand the ones that were against him and asked the population to keep on being united in his favor. Oh my God, it’s a Deja Vue altogether. Aristide said the same thing when he got back in power,” she writes.
Lawyer Honza Prchal on the right-wing blog Pros & Cons sees the decision to drop some of the blank ballots as the result of violent intimidation on the part of Preval supporters. “Another great moment in the histoire of Aristidisme! Now will they fall to killing each other immediately, or unite to oppress Haiti again?”
Liberal Richhope contrasts the vigorous protests and quick decision on the election with American political apathy. “IT IS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING how quickly the will of the people gets implemented if they start to roam the streets yelling ‘WE are the people!’. A stolen election was (probably) righted within 2 days. The (probably) rightfully elected president was installed and the people are dancing in the streets.”
Taking a lighter tone, Lee on Right thinking from the Left Coast predicts that upon “being sworn in, Mr. Preval plans to plunder the treasury, smash all opposition, and appoint himself Exalted Supreme Poobah for life.”
Bloggers talk about the Haiti elections here.
Did Gumbel bumble? Lots of bloggers slam Bryant Gumbel for declaring that the Winter Olympics features “pseudo-athlete(s)” and has a “paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention.”
Vic on Life Rant calls the remarks “racist” and asks: “Can you imagine O’Reilly saying the equivalent, but reverse concerning sprinters in the Summer Olympics or talking about professional basketball?” On The Conservative Zone, Mark asserts that “Rush was fired from ESPN for this, will we see the same for Mr. Gumbel? I doubt it. Rush is White, Bryant is Black. Blacks are allowed to criticize, Whites aren’t.”
Raoul at TV Filter says, “I’m on the fence on this one. If anything, Gumbel should take flak for not recognizing that the Republican conventions are putting an increasing number of blacks in them.” He laments the focus on race and asks why we can’t “just unite in the understanding that the Winter Games are really, really boring?” Although he thought Gumbel’s comment on the dearth of black participants in the winter games was “idiotic,” Scarcastro on Watching the Defectives says, “I have to give him credit for calling out the Winter Olympics as a colossal waste of time and money.”
For more Bryant Gumbel talk, click here.
