It's a Great Story, But is it News?

So, is Cheney shooting his hunting buddy a story?  Of course it is, the last person shot by a sitting Vice President was Alexander Hamilton (by Aaron Burr), it is an interesting, unusual and (assuming the hunting buddy comes through this okay) funny story.   (Here are Letterman's Top Ten Cheney Excuses).  (In fact, I thought the idea of "Dangerous Dick" Cheney was way funny almost a year ago).

I'm not sure, though, if what happened to poor Mr. Whittington is covered as a "shooting," or if we have to add another frame for "shotgunning").

Of course, while this is a legitimate news story, it also doesn't have any deeper meaning.  Maybe Cheney is a careless hunter or a bad shot, but that doesn't have any impact on whether he is a good or bad VP, or really mean much of anything else.  Its like Jerry Ford hitting someone with a golf ball or Jimmy Carter versus the killer rabbit.  They are fun kind of stories, but not really indicative of anything important.  So, why are we hearing so much about it?  For heaven's sake you turn on the network news and it is all Cheney, all the time. 

Part of the issue, I think, revolves around the White House press corps.  We think of reporters as being like the people in the old Lou Grant show, interviewing people, digging through courthouse records and sifting through data in order to figure out what is going on.  But the folks covering the White House aren't like that, rather I gather most of what they do is sit around the White House press room and wait for some official to come out and tell them the "news".  Sort of like the dolphins at Sea World, waiting for one of the staff to come out and feed them.  (And I will leave aside any jokes about how many trout Helen Thomas can scarf down . . . Wait a minute, no I won't).

So, you can imagine how one of these guys feels, waiting for Scott McClellan to show up with a bucket of fish when he gets a call from his editor, who is  wondering why he had to learn about the VP shooting his hunting buddy by reading it on the website of a Corpus Christi paper.  Imagine that every member of the White House press corps gets pretty much the same call,  at about the same time.  Anyone guess that they will be a wee bit irritable?  Irritable enough to call the press secretary a jerk maybe?  Or to show up on Keith Olberman's show wearing funny clothes?  Like these, maybe?

Anyway, its time for the story to die.  Sure, some of the lefties are trying to find a reason why the story is important.  This guy Lawrence O'Donnell says he thinks that Cheney might have been drunk, his evidence being that (1) some (unidentified) lawyers he knows "assume" this was the case, and (2) he has seen a lot of Republicans drink before football games.   (Using the same standard of evidence, Beth proves that O'Donnell was smoking crack when he wrote this nonsense).   Other people are making a big deal about the fact that the shooting occurred late on a Saturday afternoon (Saturday evening, really) but the story didn't hit the press until Sunday afternoon.  To which anyone but a reporter getting yelled at by his editor will say "big deal".

I agree with Jonah that we have reached the end of the story as an actual news story.  The responsible press and opinion makers will move on to important stuff that matters.  The tin foil hat folks will get shriller and sillier, as they wonder why everyone doesn't realize that this is THE MOST IMPORTANT STORY EVER!!.   A good opportunity for the rest of us to learn who is who.