Cheney's Chappaquiddick

What is it about entering the West Wing that causes otherwise very smart people to instantly and permanently forget the cardinal rule of scandal management? You know, the thing about the which one actually kills you, the crime or the coverup?

Republicans are getting nervous about the potential fallout from Cheney's failure to disclose promptly his shooting of Harry Whittington and his subsequent failure so far to apologize or even explain publicly.

The Washington Post reports the GOP is concerned about political damage to the White House. Wow, ya think?

And, in a gem of journalistic understatement, the WaPo writes the following:

The episode is turning into a defining moment for Cheney, a vice president who has operated with enormous clout to shape White House policy while avoiding public scrutiny over the past five years.

Sorry, no.

This episode is the defining moment of Cheney's entire public life. As Digby points out, even most devoted Bush cult members are drawing parallels to Chappaquiddick.

Did it need to be this way? Of course not.

It was precisely by failing to disclose the shooting in an appropriate manner that Cheney turned this episode into a story with legs. It is by failing, so far, to say one word about it to the American people that the vice-president has turned it into a genuine political scandal.

If the shooting had been reported promptly to the media, it would have been news, certainly. But, hunting accidents happen. Only the administration's most partisan political opponents would have pretended not to understand that.

The manner in which the shooting story has been managed, however, cannot help but remind people of the way the administration manages every other aspect of American government: with secrecy, dishonesty and incompetence.

Let's say your spouse has cheated on you and, by the grace of God, your marriage manages to survive. Then, one night, he or she is four hours late coming home from work and every time you call their cell phone, you get the voice mail. What are you going to think? Are you going to think that they are stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire, or that they are holed up in a hotel room with somebody? You would be forgiven your suspicions. A husband or wife who has demonstrated unfaithfulness bears the responsibility to avoid any appearance of impropriety.

The same responbility is borne by a presidential administration that has demonstrated over and over and over again that it is untrustworthy. A man with a history of mendacity as well-documented as Dick Cheney's has no right to presume the benefit of the doubt. In fact, he is foolish to do so. We have reached a tipping point at which most people assume now that the administration's first answer to any question is a lie.

Watching Scott McLellan take his daily beating in the White House press room has gotten painful. I have no love for McLellan. I think he's a degenerate liar. But, in this instance, he is stuck clearly between two extremely vindictive factions of the White House: the president's office and the vice-president's office. In most presidential administrations, there is no such conflict. The V.P. works for the prez. In this case, who answers to whom is not so clear. I actually feel for McClellan as he tries to get through this without getting killed. Literally.

Cheney's behavior only makes sense if he perceives he has much more to lose by being truthful than by risking the exposure of a coverup. Over at the Huffington Post, the speculation is that the "hunting trip" was about bagging more than quail.

Cheney and Whittington went hunting with two women (not their wives), there was some drinking, and Whittington wound up shot. Armstrong didn't see the incident but claimed she had, Cheney refused to be questioned by the Sheriff until the next morning, and a born-again evangelical physician has been downplaying Whittington's injuries since they occurrred.

The panic that a married vice-president might feel to deflect attention away from a sleazy affair would certainly explain the stupid and careless way this scandal has been managed so far. Who knows?

No matter what human weakness inspired this disaster, it is time for the president to accept the fact that his administration has no deep well of public trust to draw upon. Nobody is going to give them the benefit of the doubt. The only way out of this one is to reveal everything and reveal it now. If heads have to roll, even the vice-president's head, so be it. Otherwise, this scandal will not only be Cheney's Chappaquiddick. It will become Bush's Waterloo.