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副大統領が起こした誤射事件、公表が遅れただけでなく、その後チェイニー氏が沈黙を守り、負傷した友人（Henry Whittington）を気遣う声明を出しただけなので、その隠蔽体質・秘密主義に批判がさらに高まっている。
２月１４日付のＮＹタイムズは社説で次のように皮肉っている。
◇友人のホイッティントン氏に付きそうのが忙しくて長い間大統領に連絡できなかった。
―社説にも書いているけれども、随行員は携帯電話、ポケベル、衛星通信などありとあらゆる連絡手段を持っている。
◇地元紙のコープス・クリスティが牧場主のアームストロングさんと連絡をとって事件を明るみに出していなければ、事件は永遠に闇の中に消えていたところだ。
―報道官のマクレラン氏も弱り切っているだろうな。下手な事件帳程度の筋書きしか作れないものだから。ホワイトハウスが隠蔽を重ねれば重ねるほど、さらにぼろが出る。社説は末尾でこう揶揄している。
◇副大統領は、自動車事故のことを黙っていたら自動車の右ドアがなくなっているなんて誰も気付かない、と思っているティーンエージャーのごとく振る舞ったようだ。
―今後「違法盗聴問題」や、チェイニー氏の関与がますます濃厚になっている「ＣＩＡ工作員情報漏えい事件」などとともに、ブッシュ政権がもつ隠蔽体質批判が高まることは必至である。
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And White House Shoots Foot
New York Times , Edition: Late Edition - Final , Column: 1 , Page: 20 , Tuesday , February 14 2006 , Section: A
Let's see. The vice president of the United States accidentally shot someone while bird-hunting on a Texas ranch. It took the White House nearly 24 hours to share that information with the rest of the nation because Dick Cheney thought it would be better for the ranch's owner to give the story to the local newspaper first. And by the way, it was all the victim's fault.
That's their story, and they're sticking with it.
Mr. Cheney was a weekend guest at a ranch owned by Katharine Armstrong, a lobbyist whose family has longstanding ties with the Texas Republican Party and the Bush White House. Mr. Cheney, who is proud of his reputation as an outdoorsman, was gunning for quail when, according to Ms. Armstrong, a 78-year-old lawyer named Henry Whittington got between the vice president and the bird. Mr. Cheney pulled the trigger, forgetting one of the National Rifle Association's top rules for gun safety: “Be absolutely sure you have identified your target beyond any doubt. Equally important, be aware of the area beyond your target.” Mr. Whittington was sprayed with birdshot.
Fortunately, Mr. Cheney travels with his own medical team. (The vice president suffers from heart problems, although the full details of his physical condition are secret.) Nevertheless, according to the White House, Mr. Cheney was so busy attending to Mr. Whittington that he was unable to inform even President Bush about what had happened for a very long time. His retinue -- usually bristling with cellphones, pagers, BlackBerries and satellite phones -- was also oddly incommunicado.
The rest of the world might have been in the dark forever if Ms. Armstrong had not chosen to share the news with a reporter from the paper in Corpus Christi.
The White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, tried to spin this as a communications strategy. The vice president of the United States, he explained, designated a private citizen (who is a lobbyist for a Texas engineering company) "to go out there and provide that information to the public." As a result, what might have been a one-day gag on late-night TV is now a running story, and an excellent reminder that this administration never met a fact that it didn't want to suppress. (The last time Mr. Cheney made news while hunting was when he secretly invited Justice Antonin Scalia to go shooting right after the Supreme Court had agreed to decide whether Mr. Cheney could keep the membership of his energy task force secret.)
The vice president appears to have behaved like a teenager who thinks that if he keeps quiet about the wreck, no one will notice that the family car is missing its right door. The administration's communications department has proved that its skills at actually communicating are so rusty it can't get a minor police-blotter story straight. And the White House, in trying to cover up the cover-up, has once again demonstrated that it would rather look inept than open.
Copyright © 2006 The New York Times. All rights reserved.
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ＮＹタイムズの続報（２月１６日）
Silence Broken as Cheney Points Only to Himself
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http://www.asyura2.com/0601/war78/msg/386.html
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http://www.asyura2.com/0601/war78/msg/393.html
投稿者 熊野孤道 日時 2006 年 2 月 13 日 11:21:06
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