I am glad that the press is making Scott McClellan's life miserable on the story of Vice President Cheney shooting his hunting partner in the face.

Almost certainly, the entire White House communications operation is lying, most probably because Cheney was drunk at the time of the shooting.  If not that, then there was some other embarassing reason why the White House has hidden information and stonewalled on this.

Clearly that's part of the reason why David Gregory of NBC keeps pressing McClellan on details, something journalists used to do frequently when they knew they were being lied to or stonewalled.  Here's a bit on their back and forth yesterday.

But here's my question.  Why will the press only do this on hunting accidents and pretzels episodes, and not when it comes to major policy lies like Iraq or the budget?  It is equally clear that the administration has lied about those matters, yet the press has been far too timid to push them.  Why?