When my children were small, I taught them to tell the truth. They learned that they need to be truthful with the little things in life so that they will have credibility when it comes to the bigger things. I also helped them see that it is far better to volunteer information about something they “did wrong” than to wait for a grown-up to discover it independently.
Were I a gambling man, I would wager a tidy sum that these lessons are fairly universal. Can you imagine my surprise and dismay when the news broke this weekend that our vice president, Dick Cheney, apparently failed to pick up on these habits?
In case you live under such a thick rock that you cannot hear the sound of a small shotgun, fired accidentally into a friend’s face, the bare facts of the matter, as described by CNN, are that Cheney was quail hunting with a friend, Harry Whittington, on Saturday. Cheney accidentally hit his friend in the face, neck and torso with a load of birdshot. It took a full day for the vice president’s office to tell the public about the incident. It did so only after a private citizen broke the story to a newspaper. And the words chosen by the White House staff are oddly different from those which seem to describe reality.
As I taught my children, it is important to be honest with the little things. Cheney was warned by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for not possessing a required stamp on his hunting license. I will be the first to admit that I find it a supreme nuisance to keep all of my licenses up to date. I have a drivers license, license plates on three cars and a trailer, an occasional fishing license, and the list goes on. As a member of American society, though, I do abide by the laws and take care of my responsibilities. Why did Cheney fail to do so? Does he consider himself to be above the law? Since he has a hunting license and is an experienced hunter, it is highly unlikely that he was unaware of the requirements surrounding the stamp.
Cheney shot Whittington at about 5:30pm on Saturday. Even though President Bush knew about the accident on Saturday night, the white house staff said nothing for almost a full day, until after the family which owns the ranch where Cheney had been hunting told a local newspaper.
President Bush was told Saturday night that Cheney had been involved in a hunting accident, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. But Cheney’s office did not acknowledge the shooting to the public until Sunday afternoon, after the family that owns the ranch told a Corpus Christi newspaper about it….
Asked whether it was appropriate “for a private citizen to be the person to disseminate the information that the vice president of the United States has shot someone,” McClellan said, “That’s one way to provide information to the public.
I have to agree that it is “one way” to inform the public, but I do feel that it is the least desirable way. Was the White House staff hoping that no one would tell the press so they the incident could be kept quiet? I think that some openness on Saturday evening would have gone a long way toward establishing credibility.
Finally, we are faced with conflicting descriptions of the severity of Whittington’s wounds. On the one hand,
Dr. David Blanchard, the emergency room chief at Christus Spohn [Hospital], said Whittington was hit by “many, many” pellets. But he said most of the wounds were “superficial at best….”
On the other hand, Whittington spent more than a day in intensive care and
Peter Banko, a spokesman for Christus Spohn Hospital in Corpus Christi, said Monday that Whittington was making good progress but was likely to remain hospitalized for another few days.
I do not consider wounds which require more than a day in ICU and several days of hospitalization to be “superficial at best.” I consider a scraped knee which is treated with an adhesive bandage and some antibiotic ointment to be “superficial.” Furthermore, I strongly suspect that the White House staff “discussed” with the hospital staff what would be said by hospital spokesmen.
Once again, I am left with the disturbing sense that I do not trust what I am told by the Bush administation. It fails to volunteer information on important subjects and, when information does come out, the descriptions do not match reality. I am particularly bothered by this trait in our leaders, regardless of their political orientation. I would like to see the moral majority behave morally, with honesting, openness, and integrity. Come thing think of it, wouldn’t it be nice if everyone acted that way?
