On Meet the Press today Mary Matalin claimed that Vice President Cheney never sent surrogates out to blame Harry Whittington for last weekend’s hunting accident in the first days after the news broke …
I donât know what answers you pressed for that werenât contained in this story. And you want to know why thereâs bad faith because this human accident, this tragedy is conveyed as âVice presidentââshe just characterized itââThe vice president sent people out for four days to blame the victim.â No such thing occurred. In the first story it was clear from his spokesman and Katharine Armstrong that he took responsibility and he was apologetic. He did not send anybody out to take the blame. Iâve explained how these stories go from putting out facts to issuing denials. He wasnât outâhe wasnât outâand he wasnât not out for four days. If you go through those four days, the first day the story was out there in as complete a fashion as we could humanly do.
How can she be serious 
when she was one of the lead surrogates sent out to do just that?
Right out of the box there was Katharine Armstrong (call her surrogate #1): Whittington “came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn’t signal them or indicate to them or announce himself … The vice president didn’t see him. The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by God, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good.”
Then Scott McClellan who builds on Armstrong’s initial point (call him surrogate #2): “I don’t know all the specifics about it, but I think Mrs. Armstrong spoke publicly about how this incident occurred. And if I recall, she pointed out that the protocol was not followed by Mr. Whittington, when it came to notifying the others that he was there. And so, you know, unfortunately these types of hunting accidents happen from time to time.”
Then Mary Matalin (call her surrogate #3): “The vice president was concerned. He felt badly, obviously. On the other hand, he was not careless or incautious or violate any of the [rules]. He didn’t do anything he wasn’t supposed to do.”
This just isn’t even up for debate. Until they were forced to switch course the party line was that Whittington screwed up by sneaking up behind the vice president.
About physical courage I don’t know the answer. But all available evidence suggests that the Mr. Cheney is a man of deep moral cowardice. Makes a mistake and shoots his friend; blames the friend. Only he won’t do it directly. So he gets underlings to do it for him. Forced to speak out publicly, he appears before a ringer-journalist guaranteed not to press uncomfortable questions.
It’s all of a piece with the man’s record. He’s afraid of accountability. That’s why he’s such a fan of self-protecting secrecy. That’s why he’s big on smearing government whistle-blowers. It’s really just two sides of the same coin. He’s afraid of accountability. It’s the same reason why he’s such a notorious prevaricator — lies to avoid accountability.
These are all the hallmarks of a moral coward.
