Cheney's hesitance to alert media understandable

February 20, 2006 —

An innocent Texas quail hunt went horribly wrong for Vice President Dick Cheney last week when he accidentally shot his hunting companion, prominent Texas attorney Harry Whittington. Though Whittington was shot on the right side of his face and, after being moved back into intensive care after suffering a mild heart attack, was released Friday and by all reports should undergo a complete recovery.

Cheney, however, will not recover as quickly. Both the vice president and White House officials have come under fire over the delay in informing the media of the accident; Whittington was shot around 7 p.m. Saturday and news of the accident did not reach reporters until around 3 p.m. Sunday.

Consequently, almost as soon as the story broke, accusations of cover ups and conspiracy theories began to surface. This was further fueled by the fact that the initial reports did not come out of the Bush administration but rather a call to a local newspaper from the owner of the ranch, Katharine Armstrong. But while this paper has disagreed with the administration in the past, we also disagree with some media outlets crying foul over what amounted to a 20-hour delay in informing the media of the accident.

To begin, the only reason anyone is discussing this incident is because of who was involved - and rightly so. When Cheney pulled the trigger of his .28 gauge shotgun he may have become the highest profile figure ever involved in a hunting accident. But do not think for a minute this has anything to do with reporting just the news of the accident itself. Incidents like these happen rather frequently and fail to make news because most people simply do not find hunting accidents newsworthy.

So the issue, then, is Cheney and why neither he nor the White House alerted the media of the accident in a timely manner. While some members of the media seem outraged about this, we would like to point out that Cheney is a human being just like everyone else and thus susceptible to embarrassment, fear, and doubt. The fact that Cheney is the vice president of the United States does not make it any easier for him to deal with the reality of having injured a friend or the embarrassment he knew would result from it. It is doubtful that any average individual would have acted any differently than Cheney in this situation. To assume that the first thing on his mind after he shot Whittington was to reach for his cell phone and alert the Associated Press is simply naive.

Yet there are those who feel that because Cheney is who he is that the American people should have full access to him and everything that occurs around him. This was far from a national security matter, though, and 20 hours of wait time does not seem like such a problem. Allowing time for Whittington's family to be informed seems more important than squelching the appetites of blood thirsty mediums waiting for the next big story. Besides, by all accounts reported thus far, any details on Whittington's condition or specifics of the accident would have been sketchy at best. Has that much harm been done, then, in waiting for the complete story?

What is most disturbing about the media attention surrounding the Cheney hunting accident is that news coverage has been directed away from other stories. Foxnews.com ran a story Friday evening on Whittington's hospital release right next to a headline stating that 1,800 people were feared dead in a Philippines landslide. At this point, are Cheney and Whittington comparable news to the deaths of almost 2,000 Philippino people? Sadly, the answer is probably yes, and most casual visitors would probably be inclined to read the Cheney story for perhaps no better reason then its growing pop culture presence.

Cheney, in the end, will continue to face criticism for his poor judgment as a hunter, which is fine considering Whittington could have ended up far worse off thanks to Cheney's error. We as an American people will also continue to find humor in the issue and Cheney will continue to serve as a late night punch line, which is really not that bad either. But what we should do is take a step back before crucifying Cheney for not reporting the incident sooner and ask ourselves if we would have really done anything differently.