Al Gore versus Dick Cheney

THE RIGHT ANGLE: Al Gore versus Dick Cheney - Opinions

Last week, Al Gore gave a speech to a mostly American-educated audience in Saudi Arabia. During this speech, he basically denounced the United States government as being anti-Arab, saying that Arabs have been "indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable."

Normally, if a former Vice President were to make such anti-American remarks to a foreign audience, it would be big news. However, Gore's timing couldn't have been better: he gave his speech on the same day news broke that current Vice President Dick Cheney shot a guy.

Never mind the fact that it was a hunting accident. Never mind the risks that go along with the sport of hunting. The way this story spread, you would have thought that Dick Cheney had illegally obtained a sawed-off shotgun and gone out looking for Democrats. I wouldn't go so far as to say that an accident like this isn't news, because clearly if the Vice President of the U.S. is involved in the accident, then it's going to be news, but it did not deserve the amount of attention that it received.

Regardless of Cheney's involvement in this incident, there's only one reason the national media has made such a colossal deal out of this: they're bitter that a local station in Texas got the story before they did.

Another reason people claim it is important news is because some believe Cheney had a duty to inform the country about the accident right after it occurred. And Vice President Cheney finally went public, several days after the event, in an interview with Fox News' Brit Hume, to explain why he did not do so earlier:

"If we'd put out a report Saturday night - we could have then - one report [that] came in said, 'superficial injuries.' Had we gone with a statement of that, then we would have been wrong. And it was also important, I thought, to get the story out as accurately as possible."

And he's right. Had the White House released a report right away that said Cheney's hunting partner had "superficial injuries", can you imagine what the response would have been when it became apparent it was much more serious than that? Regardless of the fact that no one knew right away just how badly he had been hurt, the media would be accusing Cheney of attempting to cover up the seriousness of the injury.

There is absolutely no need for this story to be spamming our news stations 24/7. It happened, it can't be undone, and Cheney is even feeling remorseful about it, according to his Hume interview (that disproves everyone that's been saying he's a robot for the past few years).

The fact that it was a fairly slow news week obviously didn't help matters much. Which takes me back to my first comment: had Al Gore voiced such anti-American sentiments during such a slow news week, everyone would know about it. Instead, people who don't regularly keep up with the news are talking about Cheney's hunting accident, and probably can't even remember who Al Gore is (of course, these are also the same people who are convinced he had the 2000 election stolen from him).

On a final note, for those of you who will try to tell me that Gore is right, that Arabs in America are being "rounded up" for minor offenses, let me remind you of something: the terrorists who hijacked four planes on September 11, 2001, had frequently used document fraud to move about the country freely. After the terrorist attacks, the U.S. government was criticized for being too lenient when dealing with visas and passports. Does Al Gore really think these issues are "minor"?

(Apparently, The Carolinian felt the need to post the aforementioned "retraction" twice in their online paper, so as to make sure everyone saw what a "liar" I was. That's the media for you.)