Taking Aim on Cheney

© Dr. Gary D. Lemmons, February 19, 2006

Vice President Dick Cheney has been “under the gun” since the Saturday, February 11, accidental shooting of his friend and supporter Harry Whittington, a Texas attorney.  The chief charge against the Vice President is that neither he nor his office staff had the wisdom to inform the press until some 14 hours after the shooting and then the announcement was made to a local newspaper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, by Katharine Armstrong, the owner of the land where Cheney and Whittington were hunting.

On Friday of this week, Harry Whittington was released from the hospital and in a statement expressed his sorrow for the difficulties Vice President Cheney had experienced as a result of the episode.

What sent the national media into apoplexy was the fact that they did not get the story until after they had been “scooped” by the local newspaper in southeast Texas.  In this age of instant, 24/7, “git’er done” now reporting, this was taken as a snub, not only by the Vice President, but by the White House as well.

While I generally enjoy the press putting the heat on Scott McClellan, the President’s press secretary, I have read the transcripts of the news briefings held last week and, to be quite honest, the caliber of questions leveled by the press pool was juvenile and the tone was clearly hostile.  On February 14, for example, with a brilliant opportunity to blast the Bush Administration with inquiries as to how they might more competently deal with the enormous cost of health care in the United States, the media, led by David Gregory, the perennial nemesis of McClellan, spent an endless amount of time inquiring as to whether or not the President felt it was proper for the Vice President to inform him of the shooting through assistants or whether the Vice President should have telephoned him directly.  Then the reporters got into an exchange of barbs and mini-insults with McClellan.  The exercise was a total waste of time.  Things didn’t improve too much on Thursday, February 16, but finally the subject turned to other topics.

The truth of the matter is that Vice President Cheney was involved in a terrible hunting accident.  He shot his friend!

I doubt that, were I to shoot someone (by accident or otherwise), my first inclination would be to appear on CNN or sit down with Larry King.  Doubtless, the Vice President, who has health problems of his own, needed time to collect himself.  Certainly, Harry Whittington’s family had to be notified, and, likely, there was some concern as to just what the nature of the story would be.  Would Whittington die?  Would he be significantly disfigured?

Fortunately, for Whittington, he is going to recover with a minimum of long term effects.  He will likely bear some minor scaring and, quite unintentionally, has earned himself a footnote in numerous history books, yet to be written, as the man who was shot by a sitting Vice President of the United States.

The Press, in this instance, has made itself look like the ripe south end of a north bound mule.  Shame on them!

What is missing in this story, thus far (and I can’t understand why it hasn’t emerged) is the hue and cry of the anti-gun lobby.  I would expect that the liberals, who want to keep every form of firearm out of the hands of law-abiding citizens and in the hands of criminals, to raise the argument that this event shows the need for stricter gun control.  Additionally, I have heard nothing out of the animal rights (I realize quail are fowl) groups about the hideousness of two old men out hunting poor little birds.

Since the media determines what the emphasis will be on a news story and since the media feels betrayed in this matter the focus has been and will continue to be on why the Vice President didn’t get the story to the national media sooner.

The “fourth estate” really smells bad on this one.