Accident as Metaphor

Not Funny, the Cheney Hunt

By Hal Herring, 2-15-06

I wanted to keep quiet about the Dick Cheney shooting accident, but I guess I can’t make myself do that. I listened yesterday to all the frivolity and the holier-than-thou jokes from the non-hunters, and the how-could-anyone-be-so-careless raps from the shooters, and I held my tongue. I live in a glass house as far as all that goes, and am not going to be chucking those rocks. I’ll never forget putting a .22 round the length of my lower leg and into my ankle while plinking raw eggs off the wood pile in my yard, or the nothing-else like-it whirr-buzz of shot going past both sides of my head in an incident that sounds very close to what happened to Cheney and his friend. I’ve watched two school friends recover from accidental shotgun wounds – one lost his spleen and left eye, the other watched as a deer pursued by dogs crossed a road in front of him, and then saw the smoke coming out of the shotgun of the hunter on the other side of the deer, the muzzle pointed straight at him, the double-ought buckshot kicking up puffs of dust from the surface of the road until some of them reached him and flattened him, breaking his leg.

What happened to Dick Cheney and Whittington was an awful accident caused by carelessness, and it is not funny to me. But one wonders how, even in what must have been extremis – you’ve shot your hunting buddy— Mr. Cheney and his staffers were still unable to tell the truth. The ranch owner at first said that Whittington was “peppered,� which was kind of funny. That was before the heart attack, when it was revealed that # 7 ½ shot was actually in the tissue of his heart, which meant that it must have been pretty bad, since birdshot has a low penetrating power, the heart is well-protected, and if the shot can reach there, it’s probably breaking bones in the face, causing all the havoc that it is designed to cause. The accident wasn’t so funny after we learned that.

The humor drained away even more as it became clear that this would be just another exercise in lies, half-truths and obfuscation. At one point, the ranch owner invented a “Texas protocol� about bird hunting, where hunters are supposed to yell out their positions, or something to that effect, a protocol that Whittington, the victim, had violated, leading to his shooting by the blameless Mr. Cheney. Houston Chronicle reporter Doug Pike immediately wrote a piece for Field and Stream’s website pointing out that no such protocol existed, that shooters are responsible for where they shoot, at all times, and always have been.

The tactic, though, was familiar to every American citizen who has lived in our country since the year 2000 – attack the victim, especially if he is unable to speak, attack the messenger if the message gets in the way of the agenda, change the facts to fit how you wish it had happened, change the science to support your position, make up stories favorable to your side and then keep telling them, over and over, even after they have been revealed as lies. There is no reality after all, even when somebody gets careless with a shotgun and the blood flies.

As a conservation writer and a hunter, it is amazing to me that Mr. Cheney and his friends actually go into the field and hunt at all. These are men (and presumably women- I don’t know if Interior’s Gale Norton is a hunter or not) who have worked for the destruction of every major American law protecting wild animals, wild places, and habitat. It is significant that the quail hunt took place on private land in Texas, the state where game farm hunts on high-fenced ranches are the norm and the lack of public land means that Texans who are not wealthy enough to own or lease land must travel to the public lands of the West to hunt big game. For Cheney and his buddies, there will always be a place to go hunting, on the vast spreads owned by their friends and contributors. Not to worry, if you are Mr. Cheney, if your administration is successful in getting rid of the “socialist� public lands where the rest of America hunts and seeks solitude, teaches their children to fish and love the world that the Creator has made. There will always be places for the very wealthy to experience those things. The rest of us can watch it on the outdoor channels on television, in between the double-shifts that we work to pay for health care, or pay the heating bills, or buy the gas to get to work, to buy, in short, all the necessities of modern American life that are controlled by Mr. Cheney and his hunting friends.

After the shooting of Whittington, it was discovered that Mr. Cheney lacked the Texas Upland Bird stamp required to legally hunt quail in the state. Here is the how the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department announced the stamp, last summer:

NEW GAME BIRD STAMPS SUPPORT CONSERVATION, HUNTING
AUSTIN, Texas — New game bird stamps that Texas hunters will be required to buy this fall showcase the latest development in a history of wildlife conservation success stories built by hunters. For decades, hunter purchases of licenses and dedicated stamps have provided the lion’s share of funding for important conservation work.

The fact that Mr. Cheney did not purchase one of the stamps is certainly an oversight, or at least I hope it is. But there is no way to escape the resounding gong of metaphor echoing through what happened. The local game warden issued a warning citation, and the Vice-President or one of his staffers, immediately mailed in the $7 fee.

I apologize for not being able to keep quiet, and for using this accident as a launching pad to say the things that must be said. I am hoping that this shooting could be the place where someone in a position of power can say, “I am fallible. I have made mistakes. I will take responsibility and tell the truth. I will not lie or obfuscate or attack the messengers or the victims. I will try to do better.�

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.