A Lingering Doubt. . .

about the Dick Cheney shooting incident. (I know, I know!)

But remember, a lot of times "it isn't the crime, it's the cover up." Cheney would have been a lot better off if he would have fessed up right away, and to the national or White House press corps, rather than to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, (which, by most accounts, has done an excellent and professional job of handling the story).

This morning I'm reading the Boston Globe for my daily Red Sox fix, and there's an article, on the Sports page, about the Shooting. Well, actually, it's about Mike Timlin, a reliever for the Sox and an avid hunter, and his take on the incident. Now Mike Timlin is a Republican and a devout Christian who wears a camouflage t-shirt under his uniform top in support of the military. In his locker you'll find this: S0 you wouldn't think that he would be critical of Dick Cheney. And he wasn't. But he did mention something that I found to be interesting:

Timlin said he has never shot anyone, or been shot himself.

''Not that close, anyway," he said. ''I've had some pellets rain on me. It scares you. But by that time, the guys who have shot were 30, 40 yards away when it comes down on you, by that point it's just like a little sprinkle of rocks.

"A little sprinkle of rocks." How far away was Whittington when Dick Cheney shot him in the face?
a) two feet
b) ten yards
c) thirty yards
d) one hundred yards

The answer so far has been c) thirty yards. And yet Whittington seems to have been hit by something more than "a lttle sprinkle or rcoks". So perhaps the correct answer is b? Or even a? (Well, okay, that may be pushing it a bit far.)

But if "thirty yards" is inaccurate, what are we to think about "one beer at lunch"? Again, I don't think there's any fire here, certainly no cause for Cheney to resign or be impeached, but there certainly is a little smoke. All of which, I think, could have been avoided by a timely press conference last Saturday night.

The New York Times today, in the "Outdoors" column in the sports section, features an article by Charles Fergus, the book review editor for Shooting Sportsman magazine.

Here's some of what he has to say.

I have hunted upland birds for almost four decades, often as one in a group — not for quail, but for grouse, woodcock and pheasants. The protocol is the same: When a bird is shot, the party does not hunt onward until someone — a human or a dog — recovers the bird, and all members are present and accounted for.

Cheney and his gunning partner Pamela Pitzer Willeford should have remained stationary while Whittington searched for his quail, rather than forging ahead and trying to bag other birds.

Armstrong suggested that Whittington was at fault for not calling out to his friends and letting them know he was back. Clearly he should have done that. But it remains the responsibility of every shooter to know the whereabouts of all members of the group. If you do not know where your companions are, you do not shoot. It's as simple as that.

Cheney broke another important safety rule on the Armstrong Ranch. He failed to make sure that no one was behind his intended target. We have been told that the sun was in his eyes, and that Whittington was standing in a gully or perhaps a dried-up pond. Neither is an excuse for being careless.

Now Jon Stewart made fun of the fact that Cheney got out of a truck to go shoot those pen-fed quail. How about that?

Others have raised questions concerning the ethics of riding around a ranch in a truck and getting out to shoot birds, as Cheney and his hunting partners were doing. In the South, there is a tradition of riding to quail coveys that have been found and pinned by pointing dogs. Hunters ride up on horseback or in a wagon — or more recently in a jeep or pickup truck. A traditionalist may not choose to motor to the coveys, but it is not considered unethical to do so.