Centerfield

That's really true, especially with regards to Katrina. In this Cheney story, Administration critics see a cover-up, failure to take responsibility, anti-press hostility, and missed tragets, along with a bunch of tinfoil conspiracies thrown in for good measure. The pro-Bush crew sees this as the "anti-Bush" press run amok, Bush-bashing, culture war conflict ("blue state types don't know about hunting"), and all that.

With Katrina, Bush critics saw incompetence, cronyism, racism, and all that. Conservatives saw the failure of big government, Bush-bashing, and a anti-Bush press.

Oh yeah, and the conspiracies.

My take: The Cheney story is a seemingly minor story made worse by the way everything was handled, not to mention the fact that Whittington's health has worsened. Katrina was a mass tragedy, with incompetence on all levels, from Bush, all the way down.

I guess it's an indication of my personality, that the first thing I did was start writing jokes.
A joke by its very nature tends to exaggerate and parody a situation or person.
So if you're talking about Clinton's cigar collection or Cheney's shoot first attitude, it's going to come off as partisan to a partisan, while the centrist will laugh at both.

Bob, Republicans are mostly laughing at the Cheney jokes, too... at least until the seriousness of Mr. Whittington's medical condition became apparent. It's the part about how seriously the media take the delay in telling them that we Republicans find really bizarre.