The Vice-President suffered the most humiliating moment of his public service career and probably of his personal life. Despite all of the jokes, I believe that Cheney is human after all.
I think he made a mistake in not informing the President directly. I mean he is the first VP to shoot someone in office since Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton. (Thank God our politics have not regressed to that point yet.) Telling Karl Rove is like telling the man who wrote Paul Bunyan, it is going to be bigger than life. Hence, the all-week media blitz.
If I was his advisor, I would told to him to first personally tell the President. Second, make arrangements to spend the night at the hospital, commandeering the board room, and bringing all the players involved. Third, I would have set-up a news conference to be broadcast live at 9am Eastern Time from the hospital and then he would have been the one to tell the world of this incident, not some ranch owner who is a F.O.P. (Friend of the President).
But instead, Cheney's human instincts took over. He forgot he was the VP and sought to help his friend. For the first time, he looked shaken on FOX last Wednesday. It did not help him with his approval rating, but at least people can stop calling him the "Tin Man" for the moment. He made several mistakes, like hunting after 5:30 pm, shooting his best friend and not notifying the President himself after it happened. Nevertheless, Mr. Whittington is ok, people got a good laugh and a good scare when Whittington had the heart attack, and the US Congress is attacking FEMA and Homeland Security again.
This week should be back to normal for the Beltway Crowd, but if we can learn a lesson from this, it is that…well, I don't know. I just hope that folks don't refer to target sheets as Whittingtons like people did with stuffed bears after President Teddy Rooselvelt's hunting episode in Mississippi. (Sorry about that, it was there for the taking)
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