Incwedibly, as that mighty hunter Elmer Fudd would say, three days after Vice President Cheney accidentally shot an acquaintance on a Texas quail hunt, neither he nor his office has commented about what started out as an unfortunate accident and has escalated into a firestorm of recriminations and bad jokes, as well as a window into a presidency that is up the proverbial creek and utterly paddleless.(Update: Cheney's office issued a statement late Tuesday afternoon after the shooting victim, Harry Whittington, suffered a mild heart attack during a procedure to remove a shotgun pellet that had migrated to his heart.)
The fallout also is yet another reminder of the Bush administration's inability to do just about anything right these days, as well as its penchant for lying, obfuscating and covering up about things that aren't worth the effort.
What advantage was to be gained by ignoring, stonewalling and then being downright dishonest when finally confronted about an incident involving the second most powerful man in America? A man who has a history of repeated hospitalizations for heart problems that has long called into question his ability to carry out his duties?
The answer is that the administration has so much to hide and is so chary of being accountable for anything not swathed in red, white and blue bunting that it loses its equilibrium over something as simple as a hunting accident.
Time.com has posted an interesting take on the affair. Nut grafs:
The Vice President was the press strategist, and Karl Rove was the investigative reporter. Vice President Cheney overruled the advice of several members of the White House staff and insisted on sticking to a plan for releasing information about his hunting accident that resulted in a 20-hour, overnight delay in public confirmation of the startling incident, according to several Republican sources.Even conservatives are in a snit.
"This is either a cover-up story or an incompetence story," said a top Republican who is close to the White House and has rarely been critical of the Administration in the past five years.
Says John Podhoretz, a usually reliable Cheney apologist, at National Review Online:
This story is a very big deal, despite all the mitigating factors -- the accident involved a friend, his medical team was right there to help, and all that. Something like this has never happened before, and it is a genuinely disturbing thing to think that the vice president of the United States actually shot somebody last weekend, even for fans of his. It's disturbing as well that there was a news blackout that lasted nearly a day about this serious incident. It seems beyond question that the vice president is going to have to go before the cameras, explain what happened, and show genuine remorse for his actions, however inadvertent. It's a difficult challenge for someone as reticent as Dick Cheney. But unless he does so, and makes a good showing of it, he will be damaged goods for the remainder of the Bush presidency.Meanwhile, a Deadeye Dick Roundup:
From a New York Times editorial:
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.From David Letterman: