Day: February 16, 2006

By RON FOURNIER

It’s not Dick Cheney’s hunting mishap that worries Republicans. It’s his other scandal — the CIA leak case and the threat it poses to the embattled vice president.

Republican activists acknowledge that the accidental shooting of Cheney’s friend is the talk of mainstream America and has made the vice president the butt of jokes. But they do not expect political fallout from the shooting or the clumsy way in which it was disclosed.

Vice President Dick Cheney brags that he has the power to declassify government secrets, raising the possibility that he authorized his former chief of staff to pass along sensitive prewar data on Iraq to reporters. And, in usual Cheney style, he makes no apologies for doing so.

Cheney coupled his statement in a TV interview Wednesday with an endorsement of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, his ex-aide. Libby is under indictment on charges of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI about disclosing the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.

The USA Patriot Act is headed toward renewal with most of its onerous individual rights violations intact and broad Senate support for a White House-brokered compromise that adds a few token new civil liberties protections to the terror-fighting law.

“The outcome here is absolutely predetermined,” Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said late Wednesday. “It’s going to pass with overwhelming support.”

By LANCE GAY

For a media-savvy administration that has perfected the art of rapid response and spin doctoring, the handling of Dick Cheney’s hunting accident has been a public-relations disaster, experts say.

For five days, the Bush administration let the Feb. 11 shooting incident become the brunt of blogosphere banter, fodder for late-night TV comedians, and the subject of mounting political grumbling against a White House that reluctantly shares information with the public.

By LISA ZAGAROLI
McClatchy Newspapers

Calling it “one of the worst days of my life,” Vice President Dick Cheney took responsibility for shooting a friend while hunting last weekend but defended his decision not to publicize the incident earlier.

“You can’t blame anybody else,” Cheney said in a taped interview with Fox News Channel. “I’m the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend. That’s something I’ll never forget.”