February 24, 2006
Cheney's
Quail-Gate Makes 'Feeding Frenzy Hall of Fame'
By Larry
J. Sabato
Now that the
hub-hub about Dick Cheney's shooting accident has died down, the
Crystal Ball can add a bit of perspective. Quail-Gate was a classic
media feeding frenzy, and your author wrote the book on the phenomenon
entitled, well, Feeding Frenzy.
Amazingly
little has changed since the first edition was published in 1991.
In the Kabuki Theater of American politics, everyone plays a well
practiced role:
* The public
official in the eye of the storm makes a mistake or commits a
gaffe [The Shooting]. Instead of coming clean quickly
and answering all the relevant questions, in order to limit the
damage, he delays, obfuscates, or shifts blame [Long delay
in releasing the news, the leak to the Corpus Christi paper only,
an appearance of blaming the victim--Harry Whittington].
* The public
official's assistants and superiors fail to make a strong case
to him for a different handling of the problem, or fail to convince
the official that he is headed for trouble [The Bush communications
team seems to have understood what Cheney's didn't].
* The incident
plays into the "subtext" that has long existed for the
public official [Cheney is secretive]. Where bad relations
already exist between the media and the official, the table is
further set [Mutual distrust between Cheney and the press
has long been present].
* Reporters'
suspicions are aroused and their adrenaline begins to pump. The
news media become convinced of a cover-up or worse, and they press
hard for answers to uncomfortable questions [Those White House
grillings of Scott McClellan reminded everyone of Clinton-land].
Excesses inevitably occur in the questioning or news coverage
[Reporters show anger and argue with officials, or show up
on TV wearing blaze orange].
* At this
point, the partisans jump in. Members of the attacked official's
party accuse the press of bias and bad behavior, while members
of the other party rail against the press for not asking "the
tough questions"[Too numerous to mention].
* Unsubstantiated
rumors swirl that the known facts are just the tip of a nasty
iceberg, and the innuendo is fed by both the mainstream media
and the internet [Cheney was drunk; no, he was dead drunk;
and the accident couldn't have happened the way they are claiming:
there must have been a second shooter on the grassy knoll].
* The late-night
comedians and others cash in, turning a frenzy into a farce--and
generating water cooler conversation and spin-off jokes across
the nation [At least Jon Stewart looked to the heavens and
gave thanks for his bounty].
* As he moves
from one lost pint of blood to two, the beleaguered public official
decides at last to stop both the bleeding and the swirling sharks.
He does this by doing what he should have done on Day One: making
himself available to tell the truth, warts and all [Cheney
agrees to be interviewed by Brit Hume, and the Veep is clearly
remorseful for the accident and takes responsibility, however
tardy].
* With the
demand for information having been at least partly satisfied,
the waters calm a bit, and the press and public hit the mute button--unless
additional damning information is revealed or until the next feeding
frenzy [Whittington exonerates the Vice President, and Cheney
owes him "big time"--but there's always Scooter Libby
around the corner].
* The image
and credibility of the man or woman in the eye of the storm are
damaged, perhaps permanently so, and a new paragraph is added
to the obituary file of the official in question [Cheney can
ask his Republican predecessor Dan Quayle].
* The press
takes its lumps, too. The partisans are pleased by this, since
in the modern polarized era they are in the business of delivering
lumps to the media, as well as one another.
Unlike the
mega-frenzies (Watergate, Iran-Contra, Clinton's impeachment),
Dick Cheney's Quail-Gate has no earth-shattering revelations that
redefine the political landscape. And since Cheney is definitely
not running for President in 2008, there is no campaign damage
to repair, as there has been for many dozens of other national
candidates in recent decades. Still, the jokes survive--and despite
the laughs, a sour taste lingers all around. No one looks good.
Most of the players will want to put this episode to bed quickly.
That has often been true in the sordid history of the feeding
frenzy.
One tiny
footnote: My book's first title, before the publisher and I settled
on Feeding Frenzy, was Open Season. Little did
we know how appropriate that alternate label would one day be!
Dr.
Sabato, the Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Politics at the University
of Virginia, founded the Center
for Politics in 1998. David Wasserman is the Crystal Ball's
House Editor.
