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Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Is the Deadeye Dick story really significant?

When I was just a baby, my mamma told me son
Always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns
But I shot a man in Texas, just to watch him fall
Now I'm back here in Washington, hopin' reporters don't call

- Deadeye Dick's "Folsom Prison Blues" (with apologies to Johnny Cash)

There's a lot to be skeptical about and even ridicule in this story. But Cheney could still be facing a manslaughter charge over this: Hunter Shot by Cheney Has Heart Attack by Lynn Brezosky and Nedra Pickler San Francisco Chronicle/AP 02/14/06. The hospital administrator there is quoted as saying that "some of the bird shot appears to have moved and lodged into part of his heart in what we would say is a minor heart attack." So I hope nothing I say here gives the impression that I'm underestimating the seriousness of this to the victim. Because this 78-year-old guy was seriously hurt and could well die as a result of the shooting.

It's understandable why TV comedians would joke about this. This isn't: White House Finds Humor in Hunting Mishap by Nedra Pickler [who's kind of notorious for flacking for Bush] San Francisco Chroncile/AP 02/14/06.

The White House has decided that the best way to deal with Vice President Dick Cheney's shooting accident is to joke about it.

President Bush's spokesman quipped Tuesday that the burnt orange school colors of the University of Texas championship football team that was visiting the White House shouldn't be confused for hunter's safety wear.

"The orange that they're wearing is not because they're concerned that the vice president may be there," joked White House press secretary Scott McClellan, following the lead of late-night television comedians. "That's why I'm wearing it."

The president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, took a similar jab after slapping an orange sticker on his chest from the Florida Farm Bureau that read, "No Farmers, No Food."

"I'm a little concerned that Dick Cheney is going to walk in," the governor cracked during an appearance in Tampa Monday.

Anyway, back to the main topic:

In our last staff meeting here at The Blue Voice, some reports from our crack research and marketing staffs raised a question about whether the story of Dark Lord Cheney's merry adventures in quail hunting were getting too much emphasis in the liberal side of the blogosphere. So I thought I would elaborate on why I think the story is significant.

First of all, the Vice President just blasted somebody in the face with a shotgun. That's news, in and of itself. And it's normal for people to be curious about the details. Inquiring minds want to know.

It also raises a legitimate public concern about the VP's health. In his book Worse Than Watergate, John Dean discusses at some length the general state of Cheney's health and how he has tried to keep a lot of relevant details secret. No one is saying (that I know of, anyway) that candidates for county clerk or state senator should publish their medical records on the Web. But if the Vice President has serious impairments to his health, that's a legitimate concern. Especially if they could wind up impairing his judgment at important moments.

And there are obvious questions in that regard about the shooting incident. Deadeye Dick is supposedly an experienced hunter. And he made a life-threatening blunder by pulling the trigger when his shotgun was pointed at a fellow hunter who was wearing a bright orange vest. In the Tom Stienstra article linked below, he cites the current rate of hunting accidents in Texas as 1 per 26,250 licenses issued. If you prefer percentages, that a rate of 0.0038%.

It may well have just been carelessness. But the official cover story doesn't even say that it was carelessness on Deadeye's part. The official story, which all the witnesses are apparently sticking to for the moment, is that it was the victim's fault. But it's a clear public interest to have some of the most obvious questions answered: Was Deadeye drunk? Were some of his medications affecting his ability to use a shotgun safely? Was he in a state of physical exhaustion or suffering from some ailment that impaired his physical abilities?

And the secrecy and eccentric handling of the news around the shooting incident not only is an example of this administration obsession with secrecy, in no small part due to the influence of Deadeye himself. It also puts it into an everyday context that makes it much easier for voters to understand the problems with it.

Questions like pre-Iraq War intelligence or high-tech NSA spying are certainly matters that most voters can understand, at least on the basics. Most people don't think it's right to just make up stuff to justify going to war. Most people don't want the federal government (or Internet companies, for that matter) spying on them without legitimate reasons. But those issues also have an air of High Matters of State abount them. Shooting somebody with your shotgun doesn't.

Most of us, even people who haven't hunted in years or ever, can picture what we might do in a situation like that. You're out there hunting. You shoot at a bird, and a member of your hunting party drops, probably yelling in pain. You realize you've just shot somebody. And it's a serious wounding. The guy's bleeding from the head and the neck. My wife, who's an operating room nurse, tells me that any kind of gunshot wound to the head is treated as a life-threatening injury, for the reasons mention by Steve Gilliard in this post. But you wouldn't need a nurse to know that the 78-year-old guy lying on the ground groaning in pain and bleeding from the head and neck could be in serious danger.

At that point, most of us would probably think of calling 911 and telling them what had happened and ask them to call an ambulance and notify the police, and then get someone on the line who could give medical advice, unless you had a medical person in your hunting party. It's hard to imagine anyone with half-sense not notifying the police immediately.

At some point between the field and the hospital, it would probably settle in to most of us that we had just done something horrible. Something that might wind up killing the victim and also getting us in big trouble. But most people would if anything be more likely to be overwhelmed by emotion that worrying about legal niceties. Even cops who are well-trained and have an enormous amount of emotional reinforcement from their peers are often very personally disturbed after a shooting incident, even when it was justified.

It would probably cross most people's minds to wonder whether they should call a lawyer. But a lot of people in that situation would be dazed and feeling guilty enough that they would think, no, it was an accident, I can just tell the truth about it. Personally, I would like to think I would have the presence of mind to contact an attorney once I knew the person was being taken care of medically. After all, you could be charged with reckless endangerment or, if the victim dies, manslaughter. You could be subject to lawsuits. It would think it would make sense to have an attorney present for your formal statement to the police, even if "lawyering up" makes the cops suspicious.

You would expect that the cops would investigate immediately. That they would test you for alcohol or drug intoxication. That they would interview all the witnesses separately and search the vehicle for drugs. That they would examine the scene of the shooting as quickly as possible.

But what do we hear about Deadeye Dick's experience? Yes, the Secret Service are law-enforcement officers. But their main job is to protect their charges from harm. And a shooting like this is a matter for the local jurisdiction. And we hear that the Secret Service first notified the sheriff an hour after the shooting. Would you wait an hour to call 911 in that situation? And most of us don't have a team of Secret Service agents to take care of such things when we go hunting.

Then an officer from the sherriff's department shows up that same evening to question the shooter (Cheney) and the Secret Service refuse to let him see the VP. Deadeye first talks to sheriff's officers the following morning. Yet he managed to get on the phone to Karl Rove about the same time the Secret Service was notifying the local law. And by the time the press is notified, the day following the shooting, all the members of the hunting party have nicely correlating stories. And all of them agree on the bizarre idea that it was the shooting victim's fault. Deadeye himself as of this writing (Tuesday after the Saturday shooting) is still avoiding talking to reporters. But his office did release a statement that he had inadvertently failed to pay the $7 fee for the correct hunting license!

Most anyone would understand on the face of it that this is not what would happen to you or me in that situation. We would expect be questioned by the police immediately. We wouldn't have bodyguards to turn away inquiries from the sheriff's office on the day of the incident. We wouldn't have immediate access to one of the slimiest political operators in the country (Rove) to jump immediately to work on a cover story.

Whether Cheney is actually hiding something - the details of the shooting, his own physical state, his degree of chemical intoxication, the purpose of getting that particular group of wealthy Republican donors together which likely was not just about hunting - or his secrecy is just mindlessly excessive, it still illustrates a basic problem that's an integral part of the worst aspects of this administration.

Take the treatment of detainees as terror suspects. But handling them in secret, torturing them and gathering information with illegal warrantless spying, the administration makes it harder in practice to prosecute terrorists in the regular legal justice system because the prosecutions are legally "tainted" by the methods used to get the evidence. Then as it gets harder to prosecute terrorists in the courts, there is more and more temptation to use illegal detentions and interrogation methods to deal with terrorists. And these are all things that the Bush-Cheney administration is trying to hide behind a heavy cloak of official secrecy.

Here are a few pieces that focus on the issue of the case's significance, even if it doesn't turn into a manslaughter charge against the Vice President:

Cheney seemed not to know basic safety rule by Tom Stienstra San Francisco Chronicle 02/14/06:

If Vice President Dick Cheney had followed the protocols taught 12-year-olds in hunter education programs, he never would have shot his pal last weekend while quail hunting, according to hunting safety experts.

"That's true," said Il Ling New, the nation's top female firearms instructor. "If they're taught the right things at early ages, then it can become second nature to a kid that's growing up."

Reporters ask why it took 20 hours to tell public by Marc Sandalow San Francisco Chronicle 02/14/06:

Not since 1804, when Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton in a duel in Weehawken, N.J., has a vice president shot someone.

Yet it took 20 hours for the White House to publicly acknowledge the incident, and only after a reporter at the Corpus Christi Caller Times, who had been told by the owner of the property where the accident happened, called Washington for a reaction.

Laura Rozen also comments at her War and Piece in this 02/13/06 post about the representative nature of Deadeye's handling of this story:

How the White House and the Vice President's office are responding to Cheney's accidental shooting of his hunting companion twenty times sure speaks a lot about this White House, doesn't it? It says everything. Delay, obfuscation, defensiveness, the man responsible too cowardly, having so little character, to make a statement. The Vice President's office had the gall to release a statement about Cheney not having a proper license to hunt quail, but he hasn't released a statement to explain what happened when he shot someone repeatedly and to apologize once again to the family? What a guy.

posted at 2:05:00 PM by Bruce Miller

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