The Cheney Story is Over, but the Media Hasn't Figured That Out

Drudge reports that both national news magazines planning another full week of Cheney hunting accident coverage, which just goes to prove that the print media just can't keep up with events anymore. This story ended with the statement of the shooting victim on Friday, and the only way that story could have continued for another week is if Mr. Whittington had walked out of the hospital on Friday and said "Cheney is a liar - he tried to kill me and I'm going to sue that bastard!". Absent that, the story was as dead as last Thanksgiving's turkey.

John Burtis at Canada Free Press says essentially the same thing, though much more eloquently (h/t Little Green Footballs):

When Harry Whittington strode out of the Christus Spohn Memorial Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, wearing a blazer, a crisp white shirt and a smile, as well as a bruise and a few small scabs, to face the media last Thursday, the whole artful and painfully constructed edifice of the liberal communications industry and their Democratic hand maidens came crashing down around them.

With Harry walking into the daylight under his own power, alone, sans wheelchair, without an iron lung, without a company of white suited orderlies and paramedics to brace him, with nary an IV bottle and hose in view, without sunglasses, without constant medical attention, without a single tremor or palsied movement, without a give-away halt to his gait, with not a single visible bandage in sight, with his hair combed perfectly, the jig was up on all of the liberal media’s monkey business and clowning around.

It also became painfully obvious, even for the most backward and ill educated red state rube, that the daily death watch was over, that the high stakes mortality pool had come to an end, that the heart attack which was expected to claim the life of Mr. Whittington was firmly relegated to the past and that the high-temperature media frenzy was instantly put on ice. And, further, that this particular instrument of destruction - this latest and greatest, almost nuclear, weapon, which had fallen into the hands of the Democrats and their media tools courtesy of the Vice President, who appears to be so heedless of their power and influence that he tended to his friend before he deigned to inform them, the loyal liberal protectors and Myrmidons of progressive thought - was spent.

However, the newsmags continue to cling to the remotest possibility that anyone but diehard lefties continue to care about this story, and will plod on:

If the nation's top magazines have the pulse of the country -- get ready for another exhaustive week of exhaustive Cheney shooting coverage!

This just in... Both TIME and NEWSWEEK are planning high impact covers of Cheney for newsstands starting tomorrow, with each magazine rolling out top staff bylines and thousands of words on the hunting incident: TIME: With deep reporting by John Cloud, Mike Allen and Matthew Cooper/ Washington, Cathy Booth Thomas and Patricia Kilday Hart/ Austin, and Hilary Hylton. NEWSWEEK urgently brings in its big investigative guns: Evan Thomas, Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman, Richard Wolffe, Holly Bailey, Mark Hosenball and Eleanor Clift in Washington and Carol Rust in Texas.

Some of the media have started to figure out that they didn't come off too well in this week's all-Cheney/all the time coverage. This from Reliable Sources:

On CNN's RELIABLE SOURCES, WASHINGTON POST reporter Dana Milbank fretted that the White House is exploiting the public's growing disdain for the mainstream media. "Of course they succeed,” Milbank said of Bush aides. “The press always looks awful. They will once again make us look awful.”

CNN's Candy Crowley added: "The perception is that we're whining."

White House correspondent Bill Plante of CBS agreed.

"The vice president and the White House have both used the constant press coverage of this story as a wedge,” he told RELIABLE SOURCES host Howard Kurtz. “It plays to the prejudices of the people who are predisposed not to like us, and it's one way to distract attention from what happened.”

Of course, Milbank is the guy who showed up on TV in mock hunting gear and looked like a complete idiot, bringing a fair amount of criticism to himself and his newspaper. He created his own troubles.

This whole episode just shows how immature, petty and vindictive the press corps has become.