The latest developments…
* The story appears to be rattling the Republican establishment. The Washington Post reported that “several prominent” party leaders have expressed concern that Cheney’s “slow and unapologetic public response” is turning the controversy into “a political liability for the Bush administration.” The Wall Street Journal reported similar concern, and quoted a veteran GOP operative worrying that Americans “will begin asking about whether average citizens involved in such mishaps might face legal trouble.”
* Yesterday, former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer said the incident “crosses the threshold of news worthiness that ought to be announced and explained.” He added, “It would have been better if the vice president and/or his staff had come out last Saturday night or first thing Sunday morning and announced it. It could have and should have been handled differently.”
* Similarly, Former Reagan Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said Cheney “ignored his responsibility to the American people.” Fitzwater added that he is “appalled by the whole handling of this.”
* White House aides are reportedly urging Cheney to publicly address the issue, possibly “as early as today.”
* Cheney continues to keep a close hold on information, even now. For example, the VP learned about Harry Whittington’s heart attack about 7:40 a.m. yesterday morning, but Scott McClellan wasn’t told, so he began cracking jokes about the incident with reporters three hours later.
* There seems to be some lingering confusion about whether Whittington’s heart condition was caused by a shotgun pellet that reached his heart via the bloodstream, or whether a pellet lodged in or touched the heart when Cheney shot him.
* If Whittington’s condition should take a turn for the worse, Carlos Valdez, the district attorney in Kleberg County, Texas, said a fatality would immediately spur a new report from the local sheriff and, most likely, a grand jury investigation. “Everybody that I’ve heard so far has said it was an accident,” Valdez said. He added, “Now, if the worst happens and the man happens to die, we would take an additional step.”
* Knight Ridder had a good item about how to manage a crisis. “Vice President Dick Cheney turned a tragic hunting accident into a public relations disaster by maintaining his business-as-usual approach to his life: that it’s nobody’s business.”
* Op-ed columnists continue to excoriate Cheney over the controversy. Maureen Dowd wrote, “Who did this old guy think he was, coming between Dick Cheney and his helpless prey? The luckless 78-year-old Texas lawyer, Harry Whittington, is in intensive care after a heart attack, with up to 200 pellets riddling his face and body — one stuck in his heart — from Dick Cheney’s designer Perazzi Brescia shotgun. And still his friend, the vice president, is Swift-BB-ing him. Private citizens have been enlisted to blame the victim. Maybe poor Mr. Whittington put himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he was, after all, behind Vice, not in front of him. And the hunter pulling the trigger is supposed to make sure he has a clear shot. Wouldn’t it be, well, classy for Shooter to express just a bit of contrition and humility?”
* The WaPo’s David Ignatius said the mess is the latest example of the Bush’s administration’s “arrogance of power.” After comparing the incident to Sen. Edward Kennedy’s fatal automobile accident at Chappaquiddick in 1969, Ignatius concluded, “Bush and Cheney are in the bunker. That’s the only way I can make sense of their actions.”