"Scott, would this be much more serious if the man had died?..."

That was actually asked at the White House press briefing this morning regarding Cheney's hunting accident and how it was handled. McClellan offered a pretty reasonable chronology of the White House response, but you would've thought he strangled a puppy, so aghast were the reporters. I'm not sure why they were so spittin' mad at how long it took the White House to gather information. One reporter compared it to Katrina:

"I mean, this is sort of reminiscent of the levee story, frankly, you know?"

Nor could they get over the fact that Mrs. Armstrong - a private citizen - went to a local paper. That's not the protocol!!!

"Scott, what was the input of the White House? What was your input, once you learned of this? Did you just turn it over to the Vice President's Office? Did you know they were turning it over to a private citizen to inform people?"

and later from another reporter...

"But were you aware they were just going to allow a private citizen to inform a local paper of this, and not beyond that? Did you not have a suggestion on how to inform the public?" [emphasis added]

After McClellan said something about wanting to make public the informat ASAP another reporter said:

"....And it also sounds as though your suggestions about how to handle this were disregarded by the Vice President's Office. "

That's right, disregarded, like the Administration disregards suggestions from all those that speak truth to power!

Personally, I think the press corps has its panties in a wad because the story was broke to a local paper and not directly to them.

The press conference can be heard on C-SPAN - but beware, if you like Bush, you will be rolling with laughter.