Dick Cheney and what he can do to make it right

So Dick Cheney shot someone in the face; why must this become another administration stumble? When did these supposed spin wizards loose the ability to manage the national conversation and keep everybody "on message"? There is a missed opportunity here; for the white house could turn this mishap into something positive if they weren’t concerned with saying as little as possible. The Vice President should start a hunting safety initiative, give a series of fireside chats on cable news TV, explain through the steady counsel of range safety experts, how accidents like this can be avoided. This new office would sponsor grass roots education efforts throughout America bent on encouraging youngsters to take up hunting, with a mind for safety and protocol. This is the kind of stuff the Boy Scouts and the NRA should be doing if were it not for all the lawsuits and gay scout masters consuming these organizations time and resources. Dick Cheney's little hunters club; or something like that. Ultimately I'd like to see a coloring book, with cartoon depictions of the VP demonstrating safe muzzle control, proper transportation of firearms, the correct way to hunt game birds when hunting with more than just two people, dog handling, etc... It'd be a heartfelt way for the VP to give something back to the electorate that has given so much in return.

Editorial: Cheney's actions blow against hunter safety

No, bird hunters don’t shoot each other all the time, regardless of what partisan hacks are saying in defense of Vice-President Dick Cheney.

The Vice President earned unwanted publicity after shooting a 78-year-old hunter in the face while hunting quail in south Texas. The hunter will recover, but the accident produced a secondary wound: the cause of hunter safety. A sample of just-another-day-in-the-woods punditry. Washington Times columnist Wes Pruden: “The Texas authorities are more bemused than interested, since such accidents are commonplace in bird-hunting country.” u A Salina, Kan., caller to Rush Limbaugh: “I’ve been shot before, and I’ve seen -- well, I’ve even shot a kid before. Not intentionally.” Rush’s response: “Thanks a lot for that professional input.”

Mark Steyn on the National Review’s The Corner weblog: “From an anecdotal survey of my part of the North Country, most guys see the Cheney business as an excuse to tell their own hunting stories, mostly of the been-there-done-(or-nearly-done)-that variety.”

Such are factually wrong and slander anyone who hunts. In 2004, Texas reported just 29 hunting accidents in a state that issues over 1 million hunting licenses. The overwhelming majority of hunters are extraordinarily careful. The Vice President is a conspicuous exception.

The Vice President himself didn’t help matters by waiting four days to accept any responsibility for what happened, during which time various spokesmen blamed the victim for not properly announcing his whereabouts. Nor did Cheney accept responsibility for failing to purchase the proper hunting stamp. He pinned that one on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Every year in Wisconsin, volunteer instructors devote many hours teaching the virtues of gun safety -- knowing one’s target, knowing what’s behind the target and knowing where one’s hunting partners are at all times. The scandal over the Cheney hunting accident isn’t that it took 21 hours for the accident to become public; it’s that a careless Vice-President and his media apologists complicated the task of hunter safety instructors and sullied the reputation of a noble sport. Hunting deserves better than that.