The PR Angle
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Politics aside, I find it bewildering that the Vice President and his people would allow the shooting story to fester for so long. This is not the sort of thing where they can say “liberal media” and click their heels and its gone – the vice president shot someone. By any measure possible, that’s news.
Vice President Dick Cheney turned a tragic hunting accident into a public relations disaster by maintaining his business-as-usual approach to his life: that it’s nobody’s business.
His refusal to announce his involvement in the shooting irritated an already suspicious press corps and even prompted some Republicans to complain. And his failure to make a more public show of his regret over his friend’s injury might have enhanced his image among many as an aloof and remote man, according to experts in political public relations and corporate crisis management.
18 Responses to “The PR Angle”
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
They hate transparency because they think they know better than the American people, and so they don’t have to play by common people’s rules. Send the deputies home! Lie to the sheriff by telling him it was a “pellet gun,” not a shotgun! Sit on the story for a day! Let them eat cake!
From today’s Austin (TX) American – Statesman
http://www.statesman.com/search/content/gen/ap/Cheney_Ranch_Owner.html
Frank,
It’s not Whittington’s fault he got shot. No hunter buys that for a second. However, I think Cheney is sincerely worried and feels plenty bad about it. Why he didn’t go to the press earlier about it is the bigger issue. I’m still not sold this a big deal, politically, but if it further embarrasses Cheney, oh well.
The point is that there is no nefarious reason why there was a delay. Stop looking for one.
Agreed, Frank. The bottom line is that this Administration has been horrendous with its PR. They simply do not understand that often perception is reality.
Whittingtons family is pissed that Scotty blamed the victim whose
wounds apparently were inflicted from a shorter distance than
originally reported. One is lodged in his liver, another in heart muscle
leading to the heart attack. Control freaks losing control.
You mean as helpful to Democrats as the SOTU was to Bush? Anyway, they delayed releasing the story to keep it off the Sunday talk shows. So what was the reason that the Secret Service turned the Kenedy County deputies away on Saturday night, Farris?
Peter Mirijanian, Marlin Fitzwater, and Dan Gerstein are the “nameless experts” cited in the article. But nobody ever lost a bet gambling that cons don’t read.
Nameless “experts”, manufactured public outrage, and a bitchy press core that’s out to avenge, not report. And the media wonder why their numbers are in the tank.
I’m betting Quailgate ends up being somewhere between Armstrong Williams-gate and Debate Transmitter-gate in terms of helping Democrats.
Accidents dont just happen. They are either caused by human error or equipment malfunction. The only question should be what were the rules (if any) agreed to ahead of time of where each individual is supposed to shoot. Normally each hunter in the group is supposed to have an area to shoot and not deviate from that. Since the VP is the one shooting at the time it is his also his responsibility to make sure before he shoots, period. So placing all the blame on the guy who was shot is incorrect. The PR stuff is a lot of idle speculation by the media that doesn’t count for squat.
Oliver, why are you not upset that Hillary waited 30 hours to release information of Vince Foster’s murder?
More wishful thinking from the Brown Shirt division of the conned servatives.
FOsters murder…jesus how far out of touch are you, ION? And Fairiss, come on, even the republican eStablishment knows that Cheney if full of crap. He is an old drunken fart who was so screwed on single malt that he shot a guy a few feet away.
The point is, if you have the gun and some one is hurt, its your fault (unless the poor old Lawyer was suicidal) Have any of you Brown Shirts ever taken a gun safety course? No matter what happens, its says, it is the responsibility of the shooter for anything…anything that happens.
TO any real sportsman, Dick Cheney is a joke, just like you wishful thinking right wingnuts.
Bushwhacked wrote:
Mr Whittington might have made a wrong move, and probably did, but it is still the responsibility of the shooter to know his target. Mr Cheney was in the wrong on this one, and any conservative will admit that. The Administration has been absolutely rotten on the PR end of this (and there is a PR end), but that doesn’t mean that the moonbats who think that this is some great scandal are right.
Public show of regret? Give me a fucking break. The only person he has any responsibility to is the gentleman that got shot. He owes the public nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch.
Even if he gave some Clinton-esque public apology, with crocodile tears, you on the left would just bang on him for giving an insincere public apology.
Face it, no matter what this Administration does, you criticize. Period. Even if they did what you ask of them, you would criticize them.
“Face it, no matter what this Administration does, you criticize.”
That should be: “No matter what face this Administration shoots, you criticize.”
Um, because it wasn’t a murder?
Hey, don’t take my word for it. Check the four separate investigations that say it was a suicide.
Frank_D Says:
February 14th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
The point is that there is no nefarious reason why there was a delay. Stop looking for one. >>
Other than the drinking, and Cheney’s blood-alcohol level?
Public show of regret? Give me a fucking break. The only person he has any responsibility to is the gentleman that got shot. He owes the public nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch.
You are absolutely right, JD. And I could care less how soon or how many times VP Cheney appears on Fox News. If there is any justice left in the State of Texas there will be a lawsuit that will result in Cheney having to dole out some of his Haliburton “golden parachute” money.
Dana, as you know I wasn’t pushing the scandal business and really dont care how much bad PR Cheney and the Bush Administration get over this. But Cheney has “admitted” that it was his fault (finally) so there’s little use arguing that point. I just hope the guy who got shot gets over it without any more setbacks and will be compensated for what he has had to endure through no fault of his own, period.