Reaction to hunting accident fits Cheney's "my way" pattern

Dick Cheney's idea of leaving the White House in 2009 may run along the lines of Frank Sinatra's rendition of "I did it my way."

Certainly he has done that.

My own image is of a snarling and unrepentant vice president leaving the White House with an extended middle finger to the press corps, a final "up yours" for uppity reporters and, ultimately, the American public.

What is so classic, and so ultimately wrong, about the Texas hunting accident is not that the vice president accidentally shot a hunting companion. Accidents happen.

What should bother people is the cavalier manner in which Cheney handled the accident, both at the time and later. The implausible delay of nearly 18 hours before notifying the public simply says a lot about Cheney's disdain for lesser beings.

His statements that he couldn't both notify the public and care for his victim are absolute nonsense. The White House has a huge press staff and procedures for alerting the national media. None of these folks do medical care and none of Cheney's medical aides do press.

Cheney stiffed not only the national press but his own White House press office. By waiting so long and having his host at the ranch call her local newspaper, Cheney broke all the rules. Katharine Armstrong, of the prominent Texas Republican family that owns the ranch, called the Corpus Christi newspaper and told at least one lie in her report — that Cheney had consumed no alcohol.

That's 19th-century press relations, and none of Cheney's excuses holds water. Bush spokesman Scott McClellan should have resigned in protest of the way he was treated. He wasn't informed for 12 hours that Cheney had fired the errant shot, then Cheney overruled McClellan's advice on releasing the news. Later, Cheney failed to notify McClellan that Harry Whittington had suffered a heart attack — which Cheney knew — leaving McClellan to look the fool in telling a hunting joke even as Cheney's victim suffered a medical reversal.

Finally — after dodging the press for three days — Cheney chose to do an exclusive interview on the Republican-leaning Fox News, a preferred venue for Cheney's rare media appearances — again, an erect middle finger to the mainstream news media. Fox's Brit Hume, a respected reporter, asked appropriate questions and the interview was not skewed for Cheney, but Cheney's maneuver to avoid other reporters and promote his favorite venue was obvious, and well-calculated.

If the hunting accident were an isolated case, most would be willing to give Cheney benefits of the doubt. But it is part of a pattern of "my way" that began as soon as he took office.

That would include, of course, the infamous closed-door energy task force, in which the oil and gas industry placed its stamp on the Bush administration's energy plans. Defying all requests for even the names of those who participated in the planning, Cheney stonewalled, counting on compliant courts and helped along perhaps by another hunting expedition, with Justice Antonin Scalia, as Cheney's case neared the Supreme Court.

This was followed by Cheney's leadership of the march to Iraq, which has been laid at the doorstep of Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and fellow neoconservatives in the Pentagon. "My way" in this case meant the selective use of raw intelligence data to shore up a previously determined invasion. Long after it was discredited and even disavowed by the president, Cheney insisted on linking Iraq with the 9/11 tragedies.

To add to the list, Cheney's former chief aide, Lewis Libby, now says leaking of classified material to selected reporters was authorized by his "superiors," of whom there is only one, the vice president. A Republican-appointed judge has spared the White House a Libby trial until after the 2006 elections, but open-court proceedings may embarrass the vice president.

If, indeed, it is possible to embarrass the man.

Someone should also be asking a question no one seems willing to raise: Why must one of the two most important people in the country insist on wandering around with a gun, surrounded by others with guns? Accidents happen. It could as easily have been Cheney wounded, perhaps fatally.

Doesn't anyone think about this — or is Cheney so powerful he can simply tell them where to go? I have no problem with hunting — I learned to shoot before I learned to drive — but couldn't the veep enjoy more fly-fishing as an outlet for his outer self?

Or, is this just another case of "my way" overcoming common sense?