The Press and the Quail Hunt

By Dick Tunison

It’s patently obvious to some cranks that Vice President Dick Cheney peppered his friend Harry Whittington with birdshot to divert attention from the upcoming trial of Cheney’s former aide “Skooter” Libby. Of course Libby’s trial isn’t scheduled until early next year, so any thinking person would wonder why the vice president couldn’t wait awhile to do the deed. But then, the country is populated by fewer and fewer thinking people. At least that’s the conclusion I reached after seeing the churning that surrounded last Monday’s White House news conference.

The White House press corps once again distinguished itself by firing off salvo after salvo of stupid questions at poor old Scott McClellan. The reporters wanted to know how it could be that they weren’t notified about the hunting accident moments after the Veep’s shotgun was cased. Certainly we all know that these newsmen would search out every last morsel to find the real meat. Why were they denied all the details for a whole 36 hours? The more sinister questions flirted with the notion that Cheney might resign from office or be subject to criminal action for accidentally shooting his friend. One reporter actually asked, “Would this be much more serious if the man had died?”

There is something to be said for criticizing the manner by which the news was released to the press. To my mind, it was an unnecessary public relations screw-up for which the administration has often been criticized. Bright people working around teh White House know that when bad things occur giving quality news conferences quickly and telling the story straight is the best way to ward off suspicion and later criticism. In this case, it seemed like everybody was waiting for somebody else to step up to the microphone. But Cheney says it was his call, and that doesn’t mean a cover-up was being devised during the silence.

In Wednesday evening’s exclusive interview with Fox’s Brit Hume, Cheney took all responsibility for waiting for the Whittington’s family to be informed and more complete information on the victim’s condition before anyone went to the news media with the story. Cheney said Dan Bartlett and Scott McClellen urged otherwise, but it was his decision to manage the news in his way. He pointed out that early reports are often inaccurate and incomplete and he wanted that pitfall to be avoided.

Some critics are saying the vice president should have held a news conference. Well, knowing the press I don’t blame Cheney for wanting to bypass that experience. Can one imagine the range of questions? “Mr. Vice President, did Harry Whittington ever work for Halliburton?” “Mr. Vice President, were you hoping Skooter Libby would leak the story? Is that why you waited so long?” “Mr. Vice President, was Whittington ever a lobbyist for Save the American Anas platyrhynchos?” (That means the mallard duck for those who have forgotten their Latin lessons.)

The fact that reporters cannot accept the explanation that was eventually given is not a tribute to their superior cognitive reasoning but more to their desire to jab the administration whenever possible. After all, if the vice president had truly intended to do Whittington harm he could have selected a more brutish shotgun – say a 12 gauge rather than the much smaller 28 gauge that is generally used for bird hunting. The vice president and his two friends were hunting quail, after all. But that didn’t seem to matter to the heavy thinkers in the press. As usual, they wanted to know who knew and when they knew it!

Katherine Armstrong, the owner of the ranch where Cheney and his two companions hunted was a first hand observer of the accident. It was she who, at Cheney’s request, gave the initial report to the local press. She is not a novice in field hunting. The land has been in her family since the turn of the last century and the ranch is frequently used for bird hunting. Armstrong’s account was that Whittington “came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn’t signal them or announce himself.” Cheney didn’t realize that his long-time friend was in his line of fire until it was too late. Nevertheless, the vice president took full responsibility when he told Brit Hume the fault was his, because it was his “finger that pulled the trigger that shot my friend.”

Unfortunately hunting accidents do happen. The International Hunter Education Association tracks incident reports by state. The organization’s website indicates that although hunting accidents in the United States have declined over the past decade, in 2002, the most recent year for data collection, 89 fatal and 761 nonfatal accidents occurred. In 26 of the cases, the intended target was quail.

According to Shailagh Murray and Peter Baker, writing for the Washington Post, this wasn’t the first time Cheney has called attention to himself for foraging in the woods. “Two years ago, the vice president was criticized for going duck hunting with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.” It’s not clear whether the tut-tuts were generated because the Veep went out to shoot ducks or that it was improper for him to schmooze the Justice over a sumptuous meal of free-range pheasant after the hunt.

Perhaps the comments of PETA President Ingrid Newkirk explain everything. “Cheney needs to start setting a less violent example by switching to target practice and leaving animals and people in peace.” Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States agreed. “We’d advise him to pursue a less violent form of relaxation and get on with the important business of leading the country,” Pacelle said.

More good stuff came from the press as some of its more curious members gathered in front of the Corpus Christi hospital Tuesday morning. They were there to hear from a couple of specialists who had been charged with caring for Harry Whittington. The two doctors gave their description of the condition of the injured Whittington and then made the mistake of opening the conference to questions. The reporters zinged the poor doctors with a barrage of questions that was hair-curling. It was apparent the doctors were not accustomed the kind of third degree they faced for nearly a half hour.

It seemed every inquisitor had stopped at the local library to bone up on trauma, gunshot wounds and how aged men recovered from such experiences. But when one of the doctors informed the salivating group that Whittington had suffered a “silent heart attack” earlier that morning, the reporters went wild. A tiny shot had come close to the poor man’s heart and irritated the heart muscle to the point of fibrillation. This news presented a whole new range of questioning to the quasi medical students who stood by with spiral pads in hand. An impartial observer would have noted the degree of frustration that overcame the two doctors. They had just been exposed to the National Press Corp in all its glory.

When the likes of David Gregory and other self-approving members of the fourth estate ask their stupid questions I do have a tendency to cringe. Yet, sometimes it is their persistence that reveals the truths we need to know. In some ways it’s like fishing. The reporter needs to continue casting his questions on the water hopeful that sooner or later he’ll get a strike.

I read the Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens when I was a lad. Steffens was a muckraking reporter who dug deep into political and other failures of his times. The book made a lasting impression on me. It helps me see the stark differences between the free press we enjoy in America and the control of news exercised in most of the rest of the world. I’d rather allow newsmen to ask stupid questions and probe matters that are hard to believe than silence them and suffer the consequences. We can suffer fools more easily than we can suffer the absence of solid information.

But sometimes I think reporters could be just a tad more humble as they seek the story behind the story. Simple, honest questions can often bring far more light than accusatory jabs that only illicit defensiveness.