Bozell on Cheney hunting accident: "The incident was funny"
SUMMARY: In his February 14 column, MRC president Brent Bozell wrote of Vice President Dick Cheney's February 11 hunting accident: "With apologies to the Cheney friend who received the pellet facial, the incident was funny." Bozell's column appeared well after news reports indicated that Texas lawyer Harry Whittington, the man Cheney shot, suffered a "cardiac event" brought on by birdshot lodged in his heart.
In his February 14 nationally syndicated column, Media Research Center (MRC) president L. Brent Bozell III wrote of Vice President Dick Cheney's February 11 hunting accident: "With apologies to the Cheney friend who received the pellet facial, the incident was funny." According to a Google news search, Bozell's column was first posted on the MRC website at roughly 6 p.m. ET on February 14 -- well after news reports indicated that Texas lawyer Harry Whittington, who was part of Cheney's hunting party and is the man Cheney shot, was transferred to an intensive care unit after suffering a "cardiac event" brought on by birdshot lodged in his heart. Bozell further downplayed the seriousness of Whittington's injuries by using euphemisms such as "pellet-facial" and "sprinkled with birdshot."
From Bozell's February 14 column:
Once it was clear that the man sprinkled with birdshot would survive, Vice President Cheney's hunting accident was widely expected to become a late-night comedian's bonanza, a frenzy like Wal-Mart shoppers scrambling for $29 DVD players.
[...]
With apologies to the Cheney friend who received the pellet facial, the incident was funny. Now we learn the vice president received a warning citation from a Texas Ranger for not buying a $7 hunting stamp in advance. As a friend e-mailed me, "Where else can you shoot a lawyer in the face with a shotgun and get off with just a warning?"
As idiotic as Bozell's comments are stating that this hunting incident is funny, what is equally disingenuous is the touching concern shown for a buddy of Cheney's by the angry left. While Bozell makes light of it in hopes to reduce the negative affect on Cheney, the left are circling the waters hoping to nail him, all the while acting so indignant over the jokes made about his good friend's health.
That is the funny irony to this whole story.
I don't have to give a hoot about Whittington to know that calling this accident funny is just plain ignorant.
You should have heard Tucker Carlson also laugh at the incident on MSNBC last night on the Scarborough show. I am sure mrs Withington thought highly of mr Carlson. what a moron. If it wansn't for giving me an opportunity to have an intelligent and accurate description on this board, that would have been the last time I would allow Mr Carlson's commentary to be heard by me. i am running out of journalists that i would consider intellectual property.
When I was still buying the spin that he was just peppered with birdshot and not seriously hurt, now that I understand just how seriously the shooting was it just isnt quite as funny.
Paul Begala appeared on CNN yesterday afternoon in a bright orange hat and hunter's vest for an interview. It also was well after the news that Whittington had a minor heart attack. That, IMHO, was disrespectful. He appeared to be making light of the entire story.
Same with Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank, who showed up on the set of MSNBC on Monday in a bright-orange hunter's get-up.
The media is feigning outrage over this. This should have been a one-day story.
First, you feign outrage:
"That, IMHO, was disrespectful. He appeared to be making light of the entire story."
Then you accuse the media of doing what you just did:
"The media is feigning outrage over this."
I am fake-outraged, myself!
You'd be right, except there's a difference between thinking someone is "disrepectful" and being "outraged."
I think I can believe someone is being disrepectful without being "outraged" about it.
Thank you.
You have a valid point about outrage vs. disrespect. It is my experience that people are usually upset about disrespect, but outrage is a threshold you may not have crossed.
I disagree with your opinion that Begala was disrespecting the victim here, though. From what I have seen, all of the jokes have been directed at Cheney, who is fair game in all of this IMO.
Wow, in one sentence Bozo managed to downplay the Cheney shooting and simultaneously zing late-night comedians AND Wal-Mart shoppers. Even if Whittington doesn't get a good belly laugh out of being shot in the face and then having a heart attack, he should get a hearty chuckle out of that bon mot.
... if Whittington were to die.
So MMFA when will we get the Leno thought it was funny thread? Or the Letterman thought it was funny thread? And let's NOT forget the Stewart thought it was funny thread...
Just MORE double standards here.
Once again I'll make the case I've made HERE before: It's often the *messenger* NOT the *message* that colors OUTRAGE here.
Bozell says it's funny=not funny
Leno, Letterman, & Stewart say it's funny= it's funny.
Oh really?
Mmmmmmm....
The job of comedians is to make jokes; they are not pretending to be legitimate journalists in any way shape or form. That said, one can still get offended by "pushing the envelope" of poor taste. But MMFA isn't targeting comedians. The job of columnists is to use rational arguments to sway opinion, and journalists to report truth without bias. MMFA examines the statements of people purporting to be logical or unbiased for evidence of misinformation. The article qualifies as misinformation: 1) Calls the incident sprinkling- when does something sprinkled get embedded in the heart (excepting butter) 2) The theme of focusing on the humor of this "minor incident" reflects a well-orchestrated conservative effort to minimize and detect attention from other important issues at hand, such as secrecy and independent decision-making by the Vice-President's staff.
detect=deflect
This is in no way misinformation - it may be poor taste, granted. Everyone knows where Bozell's political sympathy lies and what his ideology is.......he is a right wing commentator, not an independent reporter.
"1) Calls the incident sprinkling- when does something sprinkled get embedded in the heart (excepting butter)" --DANEMO
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Fox News just said Whittington was "peppered with bird-shot". Kind of like the way a waiter grinds pepper delicately on your salad at Olive Garden...Right.
I have never seen people so gun shy (sorry about that) to use the word shot as the verb in a description of what happened.
I really don't think this story is that big a deal. The reaction to it and the jokes are the most interesting parts to me. I sincerely hope Mr. Wittington, Esq. is okay in the end.
I agree. I have been cracking quite a few predictable jokes about this quite a bit. As long as Mr. Wittington, Esq. makes it home okay, it is probably okay to make light of it IMO.
There is a problem with what Bozell said though. I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he is like myself and just isn't very articulate:
"...the incident was funny." -R.B.Bozell, III
I think what he meant was that jokes about the incident are funny. The reality of the incident, getting shot in the face, is not funny at all. (It was funny when it happened to Daffy Duck, though, I will admit.)
It seems kind of sadistic the way Bozell put it. The jokes about the incident usually reflect the teller's view of Cheney or the Bush Administration, whereas the incident itself is all about what misfortune happened to Mr. Wittington, Esq.
I don't think Bozell meant it the way it came out.
open_mind, you might be right. I've re-read Bozell's remarks and it's hard to be certain what EXACTLY tickled his funny bone. But whatever it was, I don't see the big deal in him expressing it.
I'm sure this "incident" isn't particularly funny to Harry Whittington's family, BUT if he's going to be ok, then maybe they can appreciate the humor SOME found in it. My earlier point was SIMPLY that Bozell saying it was "funny" is really no different than Jay Leno & etc finding humor in the situation. Bozell writes op-ed pieces. Leno & etc deliver monologues.
Some here like danemo, think ONLY "comedians" have carte blanche when it comes to poking fun at or finding humor in a situation.
Using danemo's logic (scroll up to read his post)....IF those cartoons of Mohammad that so enraged the Muslim world had appeared in the *Sunday Comics* INSTEAD of the *Editorial Page* THEY would have been FUNNY and no one would be offended....which of course is ridiculous.
Bozell is just an idiot.
I think what's funny is determined by who is telling it, but also how they are telling it, who/what they are telling it about, and who they are telling it to.
For instance, I can demonstrate your point by trying to repeat a joke I've heard - automatically the joke is much less funny. I suppose that also reflects on how it is told.
However, my son finds "The Bob and Tom Show" hilarious (maybe a regional reference, but it is a very zo0-ey morning zoo show) , but I rarely find their bits to be funny, and even when I find one funny it seems to go on long beyond the point where it stops being funny for me. And the Three Stooges...I just don't get it. And it's not because I don't have a sense of humor, I think my posts here reflect that at times (sometimes unintentionally!).
So it's a lot more complex than just who's telling it. This incident is not funny, in my opinion, because I feel very bad for the man who was hurt. However, I have enjoyed Jon Stewart's bits about it, mainly because I enjoy his parody of a news anchor's glee at a juicy story about a famous person.
how fast these Yahoos can take in and then spit out the talking points. From Sheer Insanity to L. Bent Bozo the T--d, we have right wingnutz talking about "birdshot" to downplay the incident. Right on cue!
Insanity, of course, explains the delay in announcing this accident was the need for providing medical attention to the victim. Of course, the Vice President travels with a complete medical staff. And you'd think the Secret Service knows a little first aid. And since it wasn't such a big deal anyway it didn't require much time or experience to summon the EMT's...
What would have happned if Gore as Veep would have done the same thing. THe right would be howeling about it. Those are double standards that have an actaul meaning. Stewart's show is on a network called COMEDY CENTRAL!
30 yards away my butt..............
Get real.
Hyprocrisy at its finest.
Substitute "Gore" for "Cheney" and "1998" for "2006" and this is round the clock news over the next ten weeks for the conservative talking heads. They'd be calling for investigations into the time gap between the accident and the questioning by authorities. They'd be screaming about how the liberal White House kept information from the media and the public.
But because it's Tricky Dick II.... free pass. It's 'funny.' Nothing to see here, move along.
Ridiculous. Reminds me of the King funeral. The conservative talking heads were sooooooo upset that someone would politicize the funeral of someone who was very political.... forgetting about the whole little thing with Reagan and the nonstop laudfest during his funeral.
Conservatives: if you reserve the right to get upset over a eulogy involving political statements, the rest of us reserve the right to be upset when the Vice President of the United States shoots someone in the face and chest with a shotgun.
He could have shot himself in the face when he was checking to see if his gun was loaded.
I was also imagining Cheney looking down the barrel and pulling the trigger trying to see why it wouldn't fire.
Look out, Letterman, Leno and O'Brien. It's not funny!
the incident is not funny in itself. only an idiot would say that.
This whole thing is hi-larious. All week, Al Franken has been saying the phrase "shot a 78-year-old man in the face" for the sake of comedy. And it's been funny.
I'm totally bothered that Media Matters felt the need to post this. The whole nation is laughing, but MM wants to take a timeout from that to come down on Brent Bozell, a man who does plenty to earn our scorn. Yes, a man is hurt here, but let's not pretend that we're not all laughing.
Come on, there's a whole line of t-shirts already in the "I went hunting with Dick Cheney and all I got was shot in the face" genre. Atrios put up an open thread today, saying, "Light posting. Try not to shoot anybody in the face." Even Pat Leahy's been in the act.
It's rare enough that guys like Brent Bozell speak the truth. Let's not feign outrage when it happens.
Whittington is disfigured for life, and has had a heart attack, all so these decadent richies could shoot some tame birds... sick... it's a joke, but it's a sick one...
Wasn't Whittington a decadent richie shooting tame birds?