Count on far fewer private weekends, Dick

February 16, 2006

Dick Cheney has routinely enjoyed scrutiny-free weekend hunting trips, with reporters having shown little interest in covering the VP’s occasional recreational breaks. First, unlike the president, Cheney refuses to release a schedule. Second, pictures of Cheney shooting a quail hardly make for interesting journalism.

As a result, Cheney can usually come and go without much attention. After all, the assumption has always been, if something newsworthy were to happen on one of these outings, surely the White House would let the public know.

Obviously, the world now knows that this isn’t the case. And as National Journal’s Marc Ambinder noted today, news outlets are no longer willing to take the chance of missing a story.

We hear that major television networks and some print entities are trying to figure out a way to follow the Vice President during his weekend sojourns. […]

[T]he networks are thinking about establishing an informal pool to stake out the Naval Observatory and to exchange, on a limited basis, editorial information to facilitate that pool. Print outlets will also ramp up their coverage.

This may be harder than it sounds — Marine choppers often ferry the VP from the Observatory to nearby destinations and to Andrews Air Force Base, where planes designated as Air Force II are kept ready for takeoff — but Ambinder offers some tips.

If a helicopter takes off from — or lands at — the Observatory, neighbors surely notice. (Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of them.) And the aircraft arrival and departure frequencies for the Washington, D.C. area are public and not encrypted.

Usually, the vice president’s airplane is given the call sign “Air Force Two” — which means that any scanner buff with a cheap 1980s’ model handheld radio scanner can figure out if the Vice President is leaving or coming — and when. (We’ve heard the call sign ourselves on our trusty Pro-96.)

That knowledge won’t compromise security — but it might help the media keep tabs on a very private VP.

Note to Dick: you brought this on yourself. If you didn’t want increased media scrutiny, you shouldn’t have hid the news about shooting a man.

Aw! But now you’ve told the terrorists how to find him!

As we all know, Al Quida terrorists are so dumb, that they forget that the NSA can spy on their telephone calls if we don’t remind them.

Now you have gone and reminded them that Dick flys around in helicoptors right in the middle of the District of Columbia. They are sure to take that as a challenge and go gunning for him.

Opps! Shouldn’t have said that.

  • This tells us a lot more about our lazy press corps. They don’t have his schedule? What’s with that? He’s our employee, for Christ’s sake. They don’t “dog” his residence or snoop for word about where he’s going? What’s with that?

    Must be too many fires and suburban muders to cover, ya suppose? Or maybe they’re all spending most of their time with their make-up people. Yeah, that explains it.

    What bums our press people really are. It’s disgusting.

  • I think just shooting the guy was enough to make the media interested in following him on his weekends. But I wonder why no one else has asked the question: how many other drunken weekend shootings has the White House kept from us?

  • “They don’t “dog” his residence or snoop for word about where he’s going? What’s with that?” – ES

    He is going to his ‘undisclosed location’ to protect the country’s ability to carry on if anything happened to George. If the press went with him every time, the location wouldn’t be undisclosed, would it?

  • I still can’t believe that no news organization somewhere has try to add up the cost to taxpayers for Cheney’s little weekend outings in terms of air travel, Secret Service costs, etc. It’s not like this was remotely an official trip, so I want to know if taxpayers paid the bill for his hunting jaunt.

  • Remember shortly after 9/11, when the admin was talking about a “shadow government?” That’s what I’ve always assumed Cheney was up to when he disappeared.

  • I’d just love to see them make Cheney’s life “hell” – he has a very short fuse, and getting as many snarls onto the public record as ol’ Darth is capable of can’t help but be a good thing. Anything that makes everything just that little bit harder for BushCo is a good thing.

  • CBS News is reporting the following:

    Cheney is in a “state of meltdown” over shooting his friend and the political fallout it has caused, a source close to the Cheney has told CBS News. On Wednesday, he accepted full blame for the incident and defended the decision to not publicly disclose the accident until the following day.

    A few days ago I suggested that the delay in reporting the shooting was due to Cheney turning to a quivering mass of Jell-o after the shooting which required that he be sedated. I know the drinking meme has already taken hold as a possible explanation for this delay, but the Jell-o meme-shall we call it the Jell-o Shot Hypothesis?- is every bit as bad politically for BushCo. as the drinking meme.

    The White House may be pushing the “meltdown” to gain sympathy for Cheney and make him look more human; although whoever decided to describe it as a “meltdown”, doesn’t have a very good way with words. It makes Cheney look look weak. These people want us to trust them to take care of us in the event of a terrorist attack. However, Cheney falls apart and can’t even take care of himself when he accidentally shoots an acquaintance. We should be pushing this angle more heavily.

    BTW, this may not be the correct thread to post this on. I picked the first Cheney Shooter thread I could find.

  • I still want to know about the two ladies. The effects of alcohol and heart medication, the blood alcohol of Harry, secret service records, past hunting escapades … anything….. Please God, let there be more dirt, but first let them get caught in another half assed cover-up . Darth deserves it.

  • Rege,

    I see your point on poor word choice, but the meltdown language actually fits in nicely with the Nooner approach. If he is emotionally incapacitated by the trauma of this, it makes a nice first move toward him stepping down to be replaced by a potential 2008 candidate.

  • zeitgeist, my primary point is that whatever point we hammer home must be based in reality. We shouldn’t be wed to the drinking meme. Clinton was impeached because, as it turned out, he did get a BJ or two from Monica. I can recall when the news broke Stephanopoulos on This Week essential said, “Oh, no a bimbo eruption.” There was reason to think it might be true.

    All we have at the moment as evidence that drinking may have played a role in Dick’s excellent adventure is a couple of decade old DUI convictions. It is fine to point out that the delay between the accident and the interview opens up many possibilities, including drink, it does not in fact suggest which is correct. On the other hand, The Jell-o Shot Hypothesis now has support from the inside, regardless of the motivation of the sourse.

    PS. I always find your comments thought provoking.
    Rege

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