Too much ado about the Cheney story

Barry Saunders and Rush Limbaugh? Those are two names you wouldn't normally pair together, but the N&O metro section columnist found himself being quoted -- unfavorably -- on Limbaugh's talk radio program last week. The show stirred heated discussion among readers and non-readers of The News & Observer.

Limbaugh hyperventilated over a Saunders column Tuesday that poked fun at the shotgun mishap of Vice President Dick Cheney. "Accident, my eye," is how the column began, and you might guess how it goes on from there:

"Just as surely as a fish wrapped in a bulletproof vest means 'Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes,' that shotgun blast to Whittington's face was meant to convey that I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby had better bite his tongue and forget about testifying against Cheney, his former boss, in the Valerie Plame spy case."

Do you believe that Saunders literally was accusing the vice president of the United States of intentionally shooting hunting buddy Harry Whittington as a warning to Libby? Apparently hundreds of folks did. Saunders said he received some 500 messages commenting on his column, most of them critical, some racist (Limbaugh posted Saunders' picture on his Web site.)

Limbaugh read about half the column over the air. But he left out the half that made clear that the N&O columnist was satirizing the Cheney affair. Not quoted, for instance, was this line: "When obstinate countries declare their unwillingness to negotiate with Secretary of State Condi Rice, all we have to do is roll out Deadeye Dick."

"Remember," Limbaugh tells his listeners, "this is a mainstream North Carolina newspaper. This is not a left-wing liberal blog...." He went on: "So you've got the kooks who somehow have bought into this notion this whole thing was a plot, a conspiracy, and now you've got this guy (Saunders) adding to it by suggesting that Cheney is sending Libby a message to shut up...."

I received a bunch of calls and e-mails, and it was clear that some didn't get the humor in Saunders' column. "There is no news value or substantiated fact to what Saunders wrote," said Steve Trubilla, a retired Marine from Youngsville. "At the very least, it is slanderous. Did an editor even look at the article before it was printed?" (The column was read by three editors.)

One caller went on at length that Limbaugh's national spotlight on the Saunders column was an embarrassment for Raleigh. Did you read the column? I asked. "No, but I'm going to."

I suppose if there's a lesson to be learned, it's that satire is a tricky weapon to wield in column-writing. That's because humor so often is not what the writer intends, but what the reader perceives. As Saunders told me, "If you are a Republican or a conservative, you didn't see the humor. If you're a liberal or an independent, you did see the humor."

Humor is the appropriate response to this incident, I would suggest. It is better fodder for late-night television hosts than for newspaper front pages. Yes, Cheney should have been more careful with his weapon, but the shooting was an accident that happens with some frequency in hunts that involve shotguns. One of the more helpful stories I have seen was an N&O sidebar Thursday that said getting hit by birdshot is a not uncommon hazard of quail hunting.

That's why I wasn't upset, unlike some readers, with The N&O headline in its first story Monday, "Cheney sprays hunter with birdshot." Some thought the verb downplayed the seriousness of the incident, but at the time Whittington's injury didn't seem severe.

And I bet not many other papers in the country, in their coverage of Cheney's mea culpa to Brit Hume, were able also to report on the culture -- if that's the right word -- of quail hunting. By chance, The N&O's outdoors writer, Mike Zlotnicki, went quail hunting with an expert Monday and produced a column Thursday that put the vice president's hunting obsession in perspective. "It's all about the dogs," Zlotnicki reported. I notice none of them got shot.

It is a legitimate beef that Cheney & Co. waited so long to tell the public that the vice president of the United States had shot someone. The delay in reporting only served to further the kinds of conspiracy theories decried by Limbaugh. It also launched a media frenzy over the incident that seemed excessive. Was it really necessary, for instance, for CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer to read the National Rifle Association rules on gun safety to retired Wyoming senator Alan Simpson (a hunting buddy of Cheney's)?

Unless Whittington's health takes a turn for the worse, which we all hope it doesn't, this incident should join the Jimmy Carter "killer rabbit" tale as a footnote in the chronicles of Washington politics. In the meantime, I'm inclined to echo reader Jimmy Teach, who last week wrote me about Limbaugh's attack on Saunders: "Everyone, including the media, needs to lighten up and move on."