How The Press Was Stung And The Way It Could Be

Lee P. Butler

Today’s episode of How the Press Was Stung begins in Henderson, Nevada at a rally where former United States President Jimmy Carter’s son, Jack Carter, is announcing his candidacy for the United States Senate.

Jimmy Carter decides to take the spotlight. “Under the Bush administration, there’s been a disgraceful and illegal decision... we’re not going to let the judges or the Congress or anyone else know that we’re spying on the American people,” Carter grumbles almost incoherently. He also adds, “I hope that eventually the case will go to the Supreme Court. I have no doubt that when it’s over, the Supreme Court will rule that Bush has violated the law.”

Little does Carter know, but the President he is attacking had already utilized judges for the NSA program to which Carter was referring, plus had several in depth meetings with high ranking members of Congress from both parties and explained the program to the American public after media elitists decided that protecting the rights of terrorists was more important than national security.

In a flash back scene, Carter administration officials argue before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in support of a decision by President Carter to order domestic spying in the United States v. Truong case.

In it’s unanimous decision, the court ruled that the executive branch has the "inherent authority" to wiretap enemies and is excused from obtaining warrants when surveillance is "conducted 'primarily' for foreign intelligence reasons," meaning spying on terrorists.

Back to the present, it would seem that it might be the media who in fact ‘violated the law’ by exposing the program’s ‘secret’ information to the world and possibly jeopardized the national security of the country.

[Somewhere in Texas] The Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, is quail hunting with several companions as they enjoy some ‘down time’ away from the stressful rigors of daily life.

Still feeling the intoxicating effects of having one beer with lunch earlier, Vice President Cheney fires quickly at a covey of quail that suddenly takes flight and accidentally peppers one of his friends and hunting companions with bird shot.

Amidst a flurry of activity, the man is administered medical attention and promptly taken to the hospital for treatment where eventually he will fully recover from the incident. But not before the story can be blown into a nationwide manhunt by the mainstream press for the Vice President as they go on a tirade of personal destruction to exact revenge on the V.P. they used to call the ‘puppet master’.

Without hiding behind their usual facade, they present the seething disdain they have for the man to the world as they openly attack him because the story was originally produced by a local paper in Texas instead of the Washington Press Corps.

Then Vice President Cheney does the unthinkable and unforgivable to media elitists, he went public with his version on the despised Fox News Network where in his only interview he told Brit Hume, "Ultimately, I'm the guy who pulled the trigger that fired the round that hit Harry," he said. "That's the bottom line. And it's not Harry's fault. You can't blame anybody else. I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend. Him falling is something I'll never get out of my mind."

The press was incredulous! How could he take the blame for something they had already reported?... it was their story to report and he‘s just controlling everything!

Slowly, but surely the press is coming apart at the seams.

The story moves across the Atlantic Ocean, to Saudi Arabia, where former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is ranting about ‘imperialistic’ America as he tries to stir outrage and seems to want to incite more Arab hatred towards the country.

He says that Arabs inside the U.S. have been, “indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable.”

Mr. Gore nods and smiles as he absorbs his own self-glorifying conceit. He knows that in America he and his brethren on the Left have ratcheted up negative sentiment towards Saudi Arabia because they produce oil consumed by Americans. Yet there he is, ratcheting up disdain among the Arabs towards America, in Saudi Arabia, a foreign country that produced most of the terrorists on 9-11.

The American media is trying to find out what Vice President Cheney had for breakfast the morning of the hunting accident.

Back in America, those on the Left who don’t realize many of the Islamic extremists who are burning down buildings and killing innocent people in their own countries consider them to be infidels and would just as easily cut off their heads, are calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush for trying to protect them from those terrorists.

And just as the latest episode in the spine-tingling drama nears the end, a fast-forward preview reveals some startling twists and turns.

An abundant number of liberals take part in several treason-like events that go virtually unnoticed by the press who remain focused on proving that Cheney’s hunting license may not have been properly validated at the time of the accident.

Eventually, a visibly shaken and distraught Cheney steps down as Vice President, which allows President Bush to appoint Secretary of State Condollezza Rice as the new Vice President of the United States.

Democrats and their liberal media brethren are outraged at the sudden action and begin the mantra that the White House is once again being ‘imperialistic’ because the President can’t just appoint someone without asking Congress first.

That takes some of the heat away from the Democrats who claimed to be adamantly opposed to the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, but votes for its passage.

Al Gore and Jimmy Carter take over as the evening news anchors for two of the major networks and present false stories daily about the President’s terrorist surveillance program and inadvertently exposes Harry Reid’s relationship with Jack Abramoff.

Hillary Clinton is seen fuming about the situation with the new Vice President and realizes that she will then have to run against Vice President Rice in 2008 for the presidency. She calls the V.P. to invite her on a quail hunting expedition in southern Arkansas.

Vice President Rice: “Only under two conditions.”

Hillary Clinton: “Sure.” Like a fish on a hook, she thinks. She is the smartest woman in the world, after all.

VPRice: “Bill has to go along.”

HClinton: Muttering “Okay. What’s the second?”

VPRice: “You will only be allotted one shell.”

HClinton: *%#@&*$# [translation: foiled again]