Monday, February 20, 2006

Why the shooting matters

It's been over a week since Americans learned that the Vice President accidentally shot a fellow hunter in the face, and much of the press hoopla has reduced from a boil to a simmer. So, maybe it's time to put some perspective on the whole incident.

Since the precise details of the accident appear to be up for debate, let me begin by outlining what I believe happened.

Cheney went on this hunting expedition to try to relax from the growing pressure of low approval ratings, increasing scrutiny by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the Plame case, and the worsening situation in Iraq. He had a few beers at lunch, maybe a cocktail or two, and, while he may not have been crocked, he was sufficiently impaired to fail to see that his friend was in the line of fire. Truly, it's the kind of hunting accident that happens all of the time in this country.

Yes, both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Wittington were hunting without a proper quail license, and they've both been cited for that. However, that is the extent of any legal actions resulting from the incident.

Should the legal jeopardy stop there?

Basically, yes. Mr. Wittington has graciously come forward to state that there are risks in hunting and He feels the matter should be dropped. However, I don't think that means Americans should take this whole matter with a grain of salt and go on. It's not that we should press for a further investigation into this matter, but we should definitely interpret this fiasco and Cheney's handling of it as a comment on his character.

The way this story unfolded is so typical of this Vice President and this White House. The Vice President refused to meet with law enforcement officials for fourteen hours following the incident. The story was "leaked" to the local press by the ranch owner, Karen Armstrong, after the sunday news programs had gone on the air. Mr. Cheney did not speak publicly about the incident for several days and when he finally did, it was in a heavily scripted interview on the Fox News Channel, where he also took the opportunity to lay the groundwork for his defense in the Plame case--that he is authorized to declassify information by executive order. On the day Mr. Wittington was released from the hospital, the Vice President chose not to face the music, the nation, and the press in an unscripted situation by stainding with Mr. Wittington as he spoke to reporters. Instead, Mr. Cheney went back home to Wyoming to get his back scratched by the members of the state legislature. Perhaps most importantly, he has yet to publicly apologize for his carelessness.

These are not the actions of a responsible adult, let alone someone who is second-in-command for the most powerful nation in the world. By choosing to hunt without the proper license and refusing to speak with police as soon as possible, Mr. Cheney has shown that he believes that power carries special privileges when it comes to the rule of law. His evasiveness with the press and his refusal to stand by Mr. Wittington, let alone apologize publicly, demonstrates his strong desire to mitigate his responsibility for his own actions or to escape responsibility altogether.

So, it's not the thing itself that matters, but what it says about the man. This is the same man who refuses to release the details of his 2001 energy task force meetings or even to reveal who was involved or what corporate interests were represented. This is the same man whose former Chief of Staff, is under indictment for perjury in a case involving the outing of a covert CIA operative, and, so it seems, he is also the man who authorized this leak. This is the same man who has repeated the lie that there was a link between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government even though the 9/11 Commission debunked that idea long ago. This is the same man who declared nearly a year ago that the Iraqui insurgency was in its "last throes" more than a year ago, even as the violence was escalating on a daily basis.This is the same man who set up no-bid iraq reconstruction contracts for his former company, Haliburton, from whom he will receive "deferred compensation" once he leaves office.

Honestly, I wish that this hunting accident was the most serious issue involving the Vice President, but it just isn't. Unfortunately, the evasive, arrogant, and irresponsible manner in which Mr. Cheney has conducted himself at all phases of this incident is just a small detail of a much larger picture. It's like this: you know things are bad when the least of your concerns about the Vice President is that he shot an elderly man in the face.