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Wed. Feb 15, 2006

The Tale of the Peppered Lawyer

First off for anyone who finds this page via Google, though this article is titled “The Tale of the Peppered Lawyer,” it is not a recipe. Move along.

I’ve had a busy week of work, but when I would look up from Code World, there was one story dominating the news and punditry of the past few days. And whatever your partisan view, you’d likely have to agree that there’s never been a story that had so many Americans talking about hunting safety rules.

Of which, like most Americans, I know zilch. But common sense would dictate that when you’re around guys shooting guns, you want to make a little extra effort to let them know where you are. Me, I’d be on their six muttering “got yer back against those dangerous quail, Sparky.”

However, common sense also dictates that when a projectile from a gun hits something or someone, it is caused by two separate and distinct acts; the aiming of the gun barrel, and the pulling of the trigger.

But enough about common sense. After all, we’re talking about political hunting now.

An interesting place to start is with the victim’s Texas Republican buddies. Because of “Whittington’s lifelong Republican credentials,” there’s a lot of them, and some aren’t happy.

Keep in mind that hunting, especially quail hunting, is deeply embedded in the political culture of this state, and invitations to hunt on prestigious spreads like the Armstrong Ranch are among the most prized of political perks.

If there is anything that Harry’s friends at the Vaughn Building are angry about, it is not the shooting itself but the attempt by White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan to place the blame on the victim. It’s the shooter’s duty to know what he is shooting at and where his companions are. A shooting accident is always the fault of the shooter. Always.

Slate: The gossip about Cheney’s bad shot

They are also questioning the official version of events, in ways that I couldn’t. Because I’m not a Texas Republican who regularly hunts quail with a 28 gauge shotgun. But those who do aren’t so convinced.

Regardless of that, this “event” spilled out of that field as slowly and surely as a tsunami of molasses. Scott McClellan, the Pillsbury Spokesboy, apparently wasn’t informed of the shooting until 6am Sunday morning. And the first thing he did was get in touch with the VP’s staff to say, in essence, you’ve got to get this out now, or I’m going to be crucified in the Monday morning press gaggle.

Which he was. And now two staffs go to war, DC style:

The tension between President Bush’s staff and Mr. Cheney’s has been palpable, with White House officials whispering to reporters about how they tried to handle the news of the shooting differently. Mr. McClellan, while being careful not to cross Mr. Cheney or his aides directly, has made a point of reminding reporters of how he dealt with Mr. Bush’s bicycle accident last summer, when the president collided with a Scottish policeman at the G-8 summit.

“I immediately briefed the press on how the accident had happened, and the condition of the police officer,” who was taken to the hospital with minor injuries, Mr. McClellan said.

His message was clear: There was a procedure for conveying this kind of news, and it was not followed in this case.

The past three days have underscored, in public, what has always been clear in the Bush White House: Mr. Cheney plays by rules of his own making. It is the freedom that only a political figure who knows he is in his last job — he often says he will never run again — can get away with.

NY Times: Handling of Mishap Creates Strain in the White House

I think today you can argue that freedom may have hit the end of its leash. It’s not hard to find former Republican press secretaries who feel the same way:

Marlin Fitzwater, who was press secretary to the first President Bush (when Mr. Cheney served as defense secretary), said he was “appalled” at how the vice president handled the news of a serious accident.

“The responsibility for handling this, of course, was Cheney’s,” Mr. Fitzwater was quoted as saying in the online edition of Editor and Publisher. “What he should have done was call his press secretary and tell her what happened, and she then would have gotten a hold of the doctor and asked him what happened.”

A full account could have been put out “in about two hours on Saturday,” he said.

NY Times: Handling of Mishap Creates Strain in the White House

And for a more recently retired view…

Ari Fleischer, who served as President George W. Bush’s first press secretary, added to the growing criticism of Vice President Dick Cheney’s handling of the weekend shooting incident in Texas, telling E&P this afternoon that it “crosses the threshold of news worthiness that ought to be announced and explained.”

“It would have been better if the vice president and/or his staff had come out last Saturday night or first thing Sunday morning and announced it,” he said during a phone interview Tuesday. “It could have and should have been handled differently.”

He also said that if he were still in the White House, he would urge the vice president’s office to take some of the heat off Bush’s staff: “I think you go to the vice president and say, ‘you need to be handling this.’”

Editor and Publisher: Ari Fleischer Joins Criticism Of Cheney’s Response to Shooting

Which would be a polite and discrete way of saying, “tell Mr. Plays-By-His-Own-Rules that he’s got to stop making others take a beating for his own actions, because we’re gonna beat back.” That’s what you’ve heard out of the White House of late; McClellan reminding the press how, when the President had a biking accident, he didn’t handle it this way at all.

Because, as David Ignatius points out, it’s not so much about this one minor incident. It’s about how it near perfectly illustrates the root knee-jerk behavior of this administration whenever it encounters resistance, opposition, or, shall we say, an inopportune moment.

There is a temptation that seeps into the souls of even the most righteous politicians and leads them to bend the rules, and eventually the truth, to suit the political needs of the moment. That arrogance of power is on display with the Bush administration.

The most vivid example is the long delay in informing the country that Vice President Cheney had accidentally shot a man last Saturday while hunting in Texas. For a White House that informs us about the smallest bumps and scrapes suffered by the president and vice president, the lag is inexplicable. But let us assume the obvious: It was an attempt to delay and perhaps suppress embarrassing news. We will never know whether the vice president’s office would have announced the incident at all if the host of the hunting party, Katharine Armstrong, hadn’t made her own decision Sunday morning to inform her local paper.

Washington Post: An Arrogance of Power

And it’s not just some Washington Post pundit piling on. Again, ask a Republican:

Vice President Cheney’s slow and unapologetic public response to the accidental shooting of a 78-year-old Texas lawyer is turning the quail-hunting mishap into a political liability for the Bush administration and is prompting senior White House officials to press Cheney to publicly address the issue as early as today, several prominent Republicans said yesterday.

“I cannot believe he does not look back and say this should have been handled differently,” said Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota who is close to the White House. Weber said Cheney “made it a much bigger issue than it needed to be.”

Cheney has avoided public comment on the shooting other than to release two short statements. One stated that he would be issued a warning for not paying a $7 hunting fee in Texas; the other, released by his office yesterday, detailed when he learned of Whittington’s worsening condition and said his “thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Whittington and his family.”

Some current and former White House officials said Cheney’s refusal to address the issue or accept any blame has the potential to become a political problem for Bush because it reinforces the image of a secretive and above-the-law White House.

Washington Post: Cheney’s Response A Concern In GOP

Boy Howdy … “it reinforces the image of a secretive and above-the-law White House” down to the most petite details.

A hunting stamp is required by law? Safety rules were violated? The executive branch need not be concerned with laws or rules that are largely formalities when there are much more immediate concerns. Trust us.

A timely release of information? You know everything you need to know, we decided when it was safe for you to know it, and you’d know less if it wasn’t for those #%@! private citizens leaking to the press. Trust us.

Speak out about how terrible he feels about what happened? He’s visited the victim, and otherwise, we feel no need to say anything. At all.

An apology or statement of contrition? That would be tantamount to admitting a mistake was made. Then there might have to be accountability for actions.

There will be none of that.

Here’s what happens when you engage in obfuscation and delay instead of immediate transparency: you leave yourself open to ugly rumor. I’ve now read in a couple of places that people are questioning exactly why there was such a long delay, and noting that no local law enforcement officials were able to investigate either the scene of the shooting or the state of the shooter at the time. They are then noting that the incident happened late in the day, and that, well, they have been on hunting trips where there was alcohol involved.

See? I personally have near zero suspicion alcohol actually had anything to do with this, and if this had been handled “in about two hours” as Fitzwater suggested it should have been, it would be an entirely moot point. But now it’s a conspiracy theory. One that has no factual basis of proof, but one which also has no factual proof of denial, due to an 18 hour gap in reporting that seems entirely unexplainable.

To quote a blues song, “man, you cooked your own goose … now swim … in your own stew.”

As I’m writing this, CNN is reporting that Cheney may finally speak publicly on this matter. Dragged kicking and screaming to the podium, apparently.

I noted earlier this year, “I’ve dropped any pretense of what many bloggers feel is mandatory … immediacy. It’s not uncommon to read a blogger apologizing for being late commenting on a news event that happened less than 12 hours before. Here, it might be a day. Or two.”

Or in this case, three. Because I’m a busy guy, this event had nothing to do with me, and this is when I got around to it.

However, if I shoot a guy, I think there ought to be a little more urgency involved. In my world, it would be at the very top of my “To Do” list: “Apologize for shooting a guy to anyone who heard I shot a guy and might therefore think I’m a cold fish if I don’t speak up.”

But in Dick Cheney’s world, well, let’s just say I, Mr. Slow Response, spoke publicly on this matter … before the shooter did.