Foxy Brown Nosers

Big Time!!!!!

Today's Studio Briefing (at IMDB) has a good summary of the reaction to Vice President Dick "Dick" Cheney's decision to make his first public statement after accidentally shooting someone in a hunting accident to Brut Hime over at Fox News Channel:

The Vice President Dick Cheney's decision to grant an exclusive interview to Fox News Channel about his hunting accident has riled the Washington news corps, especially after the story of the accident itself appeared first in a Corpus Christi newspaper, the Caller-Times. Today's (Thursday) USA Today observed, "The non-Fox press feel as if they've been hosed twice now." Media commentator Alessandra Stanley wrote in today's New York Times, "Most VIP's in trouble choose the safe waters of Larry King on CNN to do damage control. Mr. Cheney chose what this administration views as the even more secure location of a Fox News interview." In Daily Variety, reporter Michael Learmonth commented, "Carving out a cordial relationship with the administration has served Fox News well in the ratings by making it the go-to news net for conservatives." On CNN's Situation Room, commentator Jack Cafferty exploded, "I would guess it didn't exactly represent a profile in courage for the vice president to wander over there to the F-word network for a sit-down with Brit Hume. I mean, that's a little like Bonnie interviewing Clyde, ain't it?"

Here's a bit more from the Cafferty/Wolf Blitzer exchange yesterday from Media Matters (which also has the video of it):

BLITZER: You still think he needs to do a full-scale news conference in front of all of the cameras, all of the reporters, and ask whatever they want?

CAFFERTY: That's never going to happen. But, I mean, running over there to the Fox network to -- I mean that's -- talk about seeking a safe haven. He's not going to get any high, hard ones from anybody at the F-word network. I think we know that.

The Studio Briefing blurb also noted former Cheney aide (but still full-time Cheney apologist) Mary Matalin saying that the idea of a news conference was scotched as it "would have meant a lot of grandstanding" by reporters.

And it looks like this strategy of coming clean to FNC paid off:

Fox News curiously decided not to broadcast Cheney's acknowledgment that he drank a beer before accidentally shooting a hunting companion in the face.

Cheney's acknowledgment that he consumed alcohol was one of the most significant new revelations of the interview, and -- though Cheney said he had only one beer, hours before the shooting -- raises new questions about the decision by the sheriff of Kenedy County, Texas, where the shooting took place, not to interview Cheney until the morning after the shooting. Yet Fox News chose not to broadcast Cheney's acknowledgment; instead, Hume paraphrased it in setting up the interview, thus sparing Cheney the embarrassment of the public seeing him acknowledge that he was drinking before he shot a man in the face -- and depriving the public of the opportunity to assess his credibility as he talked about the matter.

MM also notes that the FNC web site link to the full interview in streaming media does not include this exchange either.

Other tidbits related to Big Time's shooting party:

• Check out the Little Orange Vest project over at Inflatable Dartboard (akin to the Republican "joke" of the 2004 Republican National Convention where bandaids emblazoned with purple hearts were passed out, denegrating John Kerry's awarded purple hearts from the Vietnam War).
  
  
• Tucker Carlson over at MSNBC sez you "can’t drink a beer if you shoot, period" (via ThinkProgress, which also has the video).
  
  
• RawStory reports that Scott McClellan ducked questions related to alcohol use in the shooting party (saying Cheney had answered all the "big questions"), but that the press conference also was peppered with questions about the UN report on Gitmo and NSA spying.
  
  
• Finally, check out The Daily Show's take on yesterday's FNC interview and the growing DickCheneyShotAGuyInTheFaceGate. [ed. note - I'm not so sure about the new crop of TDS reporters; Jason Jones just isn't that funny.]