Why it Matters

So the Vice President peppers some old guy with bird shot in South Texas and the entire White House Press Corp flips out because it took the Veeps office 20 hours or so to alert them. Immediately the media backlash against the media begins. Pundits and other even less intelligent folks out there say: "What's the big deal?" "It's not really important news." "Aren't there more important things to focus on?" "Why does the press hate Dick Cheney?"

Here is why the delay matters.

Dick Cheney is arguably the most influential Vice President in history. He and his staff played key roles in the decisions to go to war in Iraq, consider domestic spying initiatives in violation of FISA, detain prisoners in Guantanamo, and leak information about intelligence operatives to the press. Dick Cheney is also, arguably, the least visible and accessible Vice President in history. By having no political ambitions after his term, Cheney has no pressing need to answer to the people. He rarely speaks in public outside of carefully choreographed events among friendly audiences. He doesn't hold press conferences. His whereabouts continue to remain secret in most cases. And most importantly, he rarely speaks to the media.

Not a problem, you say. Who cares about the media? Well we all should, because by not answering to the media he is in a sense not answering to the people. The events at the Armstrong ranch, while insignificant in and of themselves, point to the larger issue of accountability. Our leaders derive their power from the people. As the attacks on 9-11 show us, we are all held responsible for the acts of our government. As well we should. In a democracy there are no innocent victims. We claim that the U.S. government is of, by, and for the people. That means that when the government tortures prisoners, WE are torturing those prisoners. When the government invades a sovereign nation under false pretense, WE invade that country. We cannot hold ourselves up as a democratic ideal to the world and then distance ourselves from our elected leaders. And the key to our ability to make informed decisions about our leaders lay in the complete transparency of our government and the absolute insistence that our leaders be accountable for their actions. While Dick Cheney's accident is of little importance in and of itself, especially in a week that saw the release of the scathing Congressional report on Katrina, increased tension with Iran over nuclear development, more torture photos surfacing from Iraq, and news of a rapidly melting ice sheet in Greenland, it is indicative of a broader policy of secrecy that this administration, especially the office of the Vice President, engages in that undermine the very democratic ideals upon which our nation is based. Apparently the press, finally, got tired of this complete disregard for the people and has called Cheney to the mat. It is a long time coming. We should be applauding the White House Press Corp and demanding that they continue to focus this same scrutiny and attention on the administration in every regard.
Perhaps this is the straw that finally broke the camel's back?