The Shot Heard 'Round the World

I find it comical that despite all the lies and warmongering of the past several years, it took an actual gunshot from the hand of Dick "Dick" Cheney for the press to realize that something smells rotten at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The accident happened around 5:30 p.m. on a private ranch about 200 miles south of San Antonio, where the vice president has hunted previously. Whittington was treated on the scene by Cheney's traveling medical detail before being taken by helicopter to the hospital.

The accident was not reported publicly by the vice president's office until Sunday afternoon and then only after an account provided by the ranch's owner appeared on the Web site of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times -- the local newspaper.

In a testy exchange with reporters on Monday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan was bombarded with questions about the propriety of a private citizen making public a shooting incident involving the vice president and whether Cheney had followed White House protocol.

McClellan said Bush and senior aides were first told by staff in the Situation Room that there had been an accident in Cheney's hunting party and that the president learned later on Saturday night that the vice president had been the shooter.