An Arrogance of Power

David Ignatius wrote in WaPo There is a temptation that seeps into the souls of even the most righteous politicians and leads them to bend the rules, and eventually the truth, to suit the political needs of the moment. That arrogance of power is on display with the Bush administration. The most vivid example is the long delay in informing the country that Vice President Cheney had accidentally shot a man last Saturday while hunting in Texas.

The real Arrogance of Power is on the part of the media, thinking that the White House should have as its first priority informing the White House Press Corp anytime something embarrassing happens. These arrogant idiots think they should have been informed even before Cheney had the medical people traveling with him help the man that was shot, and certainly before Cheney visited him in the hospital. However if they had been informed before Cheney went to visit the man, they would have said he was just grandstanding, and wanting to turn it into a Photo Opportunity.

For a White House that informs us about the smallest bumps and scrapes suffered by the president and vice president, the lag is inexplicable.

Why? Injury to Potus or the VP might conceivably be of interest to the American People, since they are in charge of the Executive Branch of the government, but injury to a lawyer in Texas is not earthshaking news, even it his injury was the result of an accident involving the VP.

But let us assume the obvious: It was an attempt to delay and perhaps suppress embarrassing news.

Of course it was. And what is wrong with that.

We will never know whether the vice president's office would have announced the incident at all if the host of the hunting party, Katharine Armstrong, hadn't made her own decision Sunday morning to inform her local paper.

Reports are they discussed making it public, and decided Katharine Armstrong would handle it. But the press is not even willing to take their word about that. Is there any surprise that they did not see any reason to tell them more.

Nobody died at Armstrong Ranch, but this incident reminds me a bit of Sen. Edward Kennedy's delay in informing Massachusetts authorities about his role in the fatal automobile accident at Chappaquiddick in 1969.

There is a big difference. Not only was the man not pregnant, and at a time before Roe v Wade would have made an abortion legal, but Cheney made sure he got immediate medical attention, rather than leaving him to drown in a car, and he made sure the man was promptly flown to a hospital, and visited him there.