Here's what I thought you'd like to hear about today:

1. The White House Press Corps
2. Cheney Speaks
3. A Briefing from Tal 'Afar
4. A Briefing from the Foreign Press Center
5. The Minuteman Project on C-SPAN

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It's an extended show today. There is just too much material to fit into my normal format, so today's show is extra long. Let the show begin:

The White House Press Corps

With all the fuss recently about Vice President Cheney's hunting accident, there is widespread perception in the press of a coverup, at least a 20 hour coverup. The White House press corp is having conniption fits. The Wall Street Journal captured their attitudes perfectly. I'll read from it here:

Cheney's Coverup

February 15, 2006; Page A16

The press corps is outraged that the White House waited 20 hours or so to disclose that Vice President Dick Cheney had shot a hunting companion, and we can see why. Don't these Bush people understand that the coverup is worse than the crime?

In the name of media solidarity, and in the interest of restraining the Imperial Presidency, we have put together the following coverup timeline with crucial questions that deserve to be answered:

• 5:30 p.m., Saturday (all times Central Standard Time). Mr. Cheney sprays Harry Whittington with birdshot, and the Secret Service immediately informs local police. Who is Harry Whittington and whom does he lobby for? Does he know Scooter Libby?
• 6:30 p.m. White House Chief of Staff Andy Card informs President Bush that there's been a hunting accident involving the Vice President's party. Did Mr. Bush ask followup questions? Was he intellectually curious?
• 7 p.m. Karl Rove tells Mr. Bush that it is Mr. Cheney who did the shooting. Why was this detail withheld for a full 30 minutes from the President? Who else did Mr. Rove talk to about this in the interim? Was Valerie Plame ever mentioned?
• 5 a.m., Sunday. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan learns that Mr. Cheney is the shooter. He also fails to alert the media. Did he rush to write talking points or fall back to sleep?
• 11 a.m. Katharine Armstrong, owner of the ranch where the shooting took place, blows the story sky-high by giving the news to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. According to Ms. Armstrong, Mr. Cheney told her to do what she thought made sense. Has Ms. Armstrong ever worked for Halliburton?
• 11:27 a.m., Monday. Mr. McClellan finally holds a press conference and gets grilled. One reporter actually asks (and we're not making this one up), "Would this be much more serious if the man had died?"
• 1:30 p.m. The Texas paper posts the story on its Web site, after calling the Veep's office for confirmation. Everyone involved confirms more or less everything, or so the official line goes. Their agreement is very suspicious.

For the record, Mr. McClellan replied, "Of course it would." We hope the 78-year-old Mr. Whittington recovers promptly after his heart attack yesterday. As for the Beltway press corps, it has once again earned the esteem in which it is held by the American public.

Here's the clip the article refers to.

Play clip.

These reporters are such jerks. Of course it would be different if he had died. It would also be different if Cheney had fired a nuclear armed cruise missile at him, and it had killed everyone in the hunting party, plus half of South Texas. So what, madam hypothetical?

Cheney Speaks

The Vice President agreed to an interview with Brit Hume Wednesday night to clear the air. I'm going to play a few clips from the interview. Listen to this part where he describes the location of Harry Whitington when he was shot, down in a gully, with the sun behind him, such that his hunting vest was ineffective. Thanks to Ian Schwartz at Expose the Left for a copy of the video from Fox News.

Play clip.

This later clip describes the timing for releasing the information to the press. It appears to be delayed to enable the family to notify the next of kin, and to confirm that Whitington was going to be O.K. Brit questions some of Cheney's statements, and we may not know exactly why there was a delay even after the next of kin were notified. Sooner is better, if it is accurate, is the guiding principal Cheney followed.

Play clip.

A Briefing from Tal 'Afar

Powerline Blog had this post earlier in the week:

Yesterday I noted that Col. McMaster had given an utterly compelling Pentagon briefing by video from Iraq this past September on the operation that cleared Tal 'Afar, but that I had been unable to find the link to the video on the Pentagon Channel. Robert Newton writes that he found Col. McMaster's briefing on the Pentagon Channel by clicking on "View Programming" and then searching for "McMaster," and that it worked in Internet Explorer but not in Firefox. Mr. Newton adds:

The immediate and persistent thought I had is, "Why isn't this story on the front page of Time?" I have to believe that Col. McMaster's story, and hundreds like it, comprise the true story of our mission in Iraq. This is what the American media need to put in front of our people. To paraphrase Joseph Lowery, "There are weapons of misdirection right here..." in the mainstream media.

Play clip.

Powerline is right that we need a hundred Tal 'Afar's across Iraq. And I also believe that that is exactly what is happening, under the noses of the press corp inside the green zone in Baghdad.

A Briefing from The Foreign Press Center

I subscribe to the Pentagon Channel Podcast, and I get all sorts of useless stuff in the feed. But, as I have said before, there are some terrific pieces that get through. One such gem came in today. The description reads this way:

John Bellinger, State Department Legal Advisor speaks on developments in the trial of Saddam Hussein, the UN Rapporteurs detainee report and the leak of Abu Ghraib photographs.

I'm going to play a clip of Bellinger's description of the UN Rapporteurs report that the NY Times was cheerleading for today. Can you imagine any NY Times story that includes the word Rapporteurs in it being even close to fair on the subject of Guantanamo? Here's one particular line from the Times story that bothers Bellinger:

* "The excessive violence used in many cases during transportation," and "force-feeding of detainees on hunger strike must be assessed as amounting to torture."

Play clip.

The Minuteman Project

I also subscribe to the C-SPAN podcast. They only send something down that pipe about once a week, and I've never found it interesting enough to repodcast in my show, until today. On my nightly walk through Pioneer Park in Mercer Island, I heard a fascinating account of the Minuteman Project, a group of volunteers watching activity on our international borders. I've tuned out the illegal immigration story, mostly due to the abundance of racist rhetoric from the advocates of closing the borders. It is often founded on anecdotal evidence, fueled by a hatred of Mexicans or other foreigners. I favor increasing legal immigration and decreasing illegal immigration, but I've never gotten excited enough about the issue to get involved, until I heard this show from 2/9/06. Here's the C-SPAN description of the show:

Chris Simcox, Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, Founder discusses viewpoint on the need for the federal government to increase security efforts at the U.S.-Mexico border. The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps is the "sister organization" to the Minuteman Project.

Listen to this clip from the hour long show, available in full on the C-SPAN site.

Play Clip

After that clip, the call-in section started. All of the callers were in favor of Mr. Simcox's activity, at least for the first 45 minutes, both on the Democratic and Republican lines. Most were articulate and accurate. Some were over the line racists. That is what bothers me most about this movement. They get a large portion of their political support from xenophobists who simply fear, or dislike, those who are different from themselves. In most cases, the influx of intelligent immigrants is a net benefit to our economy. Most are hard workers; many stay long enough to have children who go to school and become productive members of society; others pay sales and payroll taxes and then leave. But I recognize that many do none of those things, and are a risk to our society. I am concerned about the illegal activity. There is a world of difference between an educated Pakistani coming to America to help a software development entrepreneur succeed in his product development activities, and an Al Qaeda operative crossing the Senora desert to attack LAX. If we don't control the border entrance, we will get too many of the latter and too few of the former. With more robust borders, we could have a chance to do that. But I also favor an increase in legal immigration, to help increase the total U.S. economy.

That's it for now, podcatchers.