FORGET ABOUT quail. If you're Dick Cheney, your eye should be on Scooter.
While quail-hunting last weekend, the vice president accidentally shot a friend and fellow hunter, 78-year-old Harry M. Whittington. This unfortunate event came a few days after a piece of Cheney-related news that might rattle any marksman's aim.
According to a Feb. 9 report posted by the National Journal, the vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis ''Scooter" Libby, told a federal grand jury he was ''authorized" by Cheney and by ''superiors" to disclose classified information about Iraq's nuclear weapons capability. A president can declassify information and a vice president has some legal leeway to do so as well. No one is suggesting any crime was committed. The implication is that information was declassified for political gain, so Libby could defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence.
Last October, Libby was indicted on criminal charges involving the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. Libby was basically accused of lying about how and when he learned that Wilson was a CIA agent. The indictment specifically states that Libby ''was advised by the vice president of the United States" that Wilson worked at the Central Intelligence Agency and that ''the vice president had learned this information from the CIA."
At the time, Libby's indictment raised questions about what he would give up about Cheney and others, including Bush senior adviser Karl Rove. Would he make it easier for special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to charge someone in the Bush administration with the specific crime of leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent? Those questions remain relevant and potentially troubling for the Bush White House.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan easily dodged an inquiry about the National Journal report, saying, ''I heard about this story . . . but I think you know our policy when it comes to this ongoing legal proceeding and it hasn't changed."
It has been much harder to dodge questions about Cheney's hunting accident. Long after the hunting jokes grew stale, the vice president left it to the White House to handle the increasingly hostile media barrage.
Cheney gave his first interview on the hunting mishap four days after it took place, and after Whittington suffered a minor heart attack. Cheney told Fox News Channel yesterday: ''You can't blame anybody else. I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend."
From the start, the White House press corps focused on the usual: itself. Why, White House reporters wanted to know, did the vice president, through an intermediary, put out belated word about the shooting, first to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, instead of to the White House press corps? The question should have been: Why did it take so long for Cheney to inform the public?
But whatever the level of media haughtiness, the level of Cheney's haughtiness is hard to beat. In this case, Cheney's legendary arrogance turned into an easy metaphor for the generic arrogance of the Bush administration. Never explain, never apologize, until you are forced to, whether the matter at hand is a war gone wrong or a shot gone wrong.
In this case, Cheney also displayed contempt for President Bush, along with his well-documented contempt for the press. By stonewalling, the vice president turned a bird hunting mishap into a political albatross for the White House. That, in turn, reinforced the recurring theme of a president who is not in control of his own administration or its policies. Who's the boss? Cheney, not Bush. It gave Democrats a new line of attack, linking Cheney's penchant for secrecy to an overall pattern of secrecy in the Bush administration.
Cheney, the hunter, is now Cheney, the hunted. The media have him in their sights, with fresh ammunition thanks to the shots he accidentally fired at Whittington. As a political lame duck, he can dodge the press as he sees fit. But what about the special prosecutor? Fitzgerald's investigation is not as easily sidestepped.
When Libby was indicted, the Washington media predicted he would be too loyal to turn on his former boss. But an ex-chief of staff facing jail time and disgrace can redirect loyalty from an ex-boss to his family and himself. Libby's case is not scheduled to go to trial until January 2007. Cheney has plenty of time to find out whether Libby's loyalties run as deep as he believed or hoped.
For Cheney, ducking questions about a hunting accident could be preferable to ducking questions about Scooter Libby.
Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is vennochi@globe.com.
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