As if the administration of US President George W. Bush doesn't have enough problems, a barrage of jokes on television and the Internet about Vice President Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of a hunting buddy has stirred up a new wave of ridicule.
The secretive and dour Cheney, 65, who many believe is the most influential man in the Bush administration, had already been a popular target for the barbs of late night comedians.
But his hunting escapades have churned up some serious criticism. In 2003, Cheney flew a Supreme Court justice to Louisiana so they could duck hunt together, just three weeks after he had asked the court to rule in his favor in not publicizing details of his energy task force. The court later agreed with Cheney.
When news broke of the most recent hunting incident on a private ranch in Texas on Saturday, joke writers and humorists wasted no time in sharpening their barbs for a man some now call "Deadeye Dick."
Cartoonist J.D. Crowe of Alabama's Mobile Register portrayed a smiling Cheney holding a smoking shotgun. "Just another day at the office," read the caption. "Shoot first. Spin later."
In fact, the White House spin machine was knocked out of kilter by the accident -- failing to report the accident for 24 hours, and then trying unsuccessfully to join in the banter as if to portray the incident as little more than a minor playground accident.
But the lighter approach failed on Tuesday when it emerged that the victim, friend and lawyer Harry Whittington, 78, suffered a minor heart attack after a shotgun pellet moved to his heart, hospital officials said. Cheney's gun had peppered Whittington's face and body with shotgun pellets during the quail hunt.
NO STATEMENT
Political correspondents also wanted to know why the vice president had not issued a statement on the incident or reported it directly to the president, and wondered if he had been more at fault than the initial investigations indicated.
Yet even without those incriminating factors, it was clear to some pundits that there were parallels to be drawn between Cheney's trigger happy accident and the administration's mistakes in Iraq.
Jon Stewart, whose spoof news show The Daily Show with John Stewart is one of the most influential programs in the US, conducted a fake interview with a "vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst."
"Jon, tonight the vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Wittington," said the "expert," played by Rob Corddry.
"According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush."
"And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington's face."
Jon Stewart: "But why, Rob? If he had known Mr. Whittington was not a bird, why would he still have shot him?"
Rob Corddry: "Jon, in a post-9/11 world, the American people expect their leaders to be decisive. To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that America is weak."
MORE WISECRACKS
Other comics also used the incident to remind viewers of the administration's shortcomings.
"We can't get bin Laden," said David Letterman, "but we nailed a 78-year-old attorney."
"I think Cheney's losing it," confided Jay Leno. "After he shot the guy, he screamed, `Anyone else want to call domestic wire tapping illegal?'"
"Something I just found out today about the incident," Leno continued. "Do you know that Dick Cheney tortured the guy for a half hour before he shot him?"
Yet joking aside, coming as the latest CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll showed Bush's approval rating at just 39 per cent, the hunting fiasco could have a serious impact on the already low public perceptions of the competence of the nation's leaders.
"Unfortunately, this is very bad news for the White House," said conservative commentator Michelle Malkin. "The Dems will exploit this accident to smear Cheney as incapable of being trusted, weak of mind, etc. The resignation rumors will fly again. And the biography of a man who has served this country so well and so honorably for so many years will be overshadowed by a single, ill-fated hunting mishap."
Gun control advocates Sarah and Jim Brady, founders of a leading gun-control group, blasted the vice president for his staunch support of guns. Jim Brady was the White House aide left permanently paralyzed on one side by the 1981 assassination attempt on former president Ronald Reagan.
"I've thought Cheney was scary for a long time," said Sarah Brady. "Now I know I was right to be nervous."
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