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Cheney's hunting booboo
was an inspired stunt
of TheColumnists.com
Assuming his unintended prey recovers, the Dick Cheney hunting incident has handed America its best laugh since Monica Lewinsky brought down Bill Clinton.
The Bush administration, ever mindful of its place in history, realized it needed something amusing for posterity equal to that of George Bush Sr. throwing up on the Japanese prime minister, or Jimmy Carter’s attack by a killer rabbit or Gerald Ford falling down stairs.
Whoever in the White House is responsible for the hunting accident idea was indeed a comic genius. Many detect the clever hand of Karl Rove, who has earned new respect in Washington for his political inventiveness. Not even Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” or The Onion could have conceived such an inspired gag.
It’s a bi-partisan issue. Many Democrats say that it was valiant of the vice president to realize that the country needed a few chuckles at his expense after the heavy wartime mood of recent years, and believe he needs to be commended--not blamed--for his skillfulness at providing an outlet for the nation’s anger, divisiveness and general disgust with politics over the past six years. A purple heart, or even a new transplanted red one, might not be too high a reward for his efforts.
What makes this story especially welcome is that the comic relief involved Dick Cheney, normally regarded as a dour, arrogant, officious, self-righteous, terminally humorless guy. Who knew that he had such a wild and crazy comic streak? The hunting scene was right out of an old Bugs Bunny-Elmer Fudd cartoon, with Cheney in the Fudd role (“I’ll get you yet, you cwa-a-zy Wepublican fund waiser!”), or a Laurel & Hardy classic, with portly White House spokesman James McClelland as Ollie (“Well, Dicky, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten me into!”).
If the president had shot a fellow hunter, it would not have been nearly as amusing, because shooting people (mainly in Iraq), falling off bikes, choking on pretzels, slaughtering the language and shooting himself in the foot politically every few weeks, is all in a day’s work for Bush. Bush is at his most amusing when he’s just being himself.
Other gimlet-eyed, hard nosed members of the Administration were no doubt considered--Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolten--and ruled out as not quite right for the part. There is now evidence that the “hunting accident” plan has been in rehearsal for some time, and probably accounts for Scooter Libby’s injury that found him hobbling to and from court on crutches. At the time, it seemed an innocent injury, but in retrospect it now seems likely that Libby may have been injured in a dry run.
You also may recall the story last year of Justice Scalia going hunting with the vice president and refusing to recuse himself from a case involving Cheney. After Scalia learned that he was being considered as a possible target on the hunting trip, the justice begged off, citing a conflict of interest. Cheney’s office reluctantly decided it might not be such a good idea, after all, for even a conservative Supreme Court justice to take an actual fall for the Administration.
Originally, Cheney’s name came up in jest, but his staff decided that would be too preposterous--“the public will never buy it,” one said. “It’s just too zany.”
The NRA voiced some objections when the White House asked for their approval. They realized that, while a fellow hunter picked off by Dick Cheney might reflect poorly on gun-toting rich white guys, and give gun-control advocates a superb target, such an accident just might be a good moment to launch a new NRA membership drive.
As an NRA spokesman put it, “This is the first time a vice president has ever shot a member of his own party,” and went on to say that the incident was not the fault of the vice president or the attorney who was mistaken for a quail. The NRA spokesman added that, “This was clearly the fault of the quail, which was not where it should have been when the vice president shot his rifle.” All quail, he pointed out, are eager to be shot by sportsmen and any bird would be honored to sacrifice its life for the vice president--a chance to indeed go down in history in the cause of freedom and the 4th Amendment.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the American Quail Institute read a statement apologizing for the accident. “It is never our intention to spoil hunters’ good time, and all of our thoughts and prayers are with the vice president and his shooting party. To show our sympathy, we have shot and stuffed a quail and sent it Dick Cheney’s office in hopes that it will be given a place of honor.”
A spokesman for the American Bar Association was said to be displeased and wondered if Cheney had purposely plugged lawyer Harry Whittington rather than shoot over his head just to scare him. Finally, the vice president was fined $100 by the Texas fish and game bureau for shooting an attorney out of season.
©2006 by Gerald Nachman. The cartoon. slightly modified, is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Feb. 20, 2006.
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