Cheney goes hunting, then others take...

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Cheney goes hunting, then others take...
7
Mon, 12-15-2003 - 5:47pm

LOVE the last paragraph...but 70???? pheasants????  Why the heck did he need to kill that many himself??  Total kill - 400 birds?  That's a slaughter and I find it extremely disgusting!  Sure, they supposedly went to the 'less fortunate' but no one seems to know for sure what happened to all 400 birds...


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/152459_letter15.html

Cheney goes hunting, then others take their shots


Monday, December 15, 2003


By ELISABETH BUMILLER
THE NEW YORK TIMES


WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney's Christmas card arrived in the capital's mailboxes last week with this suddenly apt quotation from Benjamin Franklin: "And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?"


Franklin made the remark at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to argue that because something as small as a sparrow's death comes to God's attention, clearly God has a voice in the affairs of men. Therefore, Franklin argued, a prayer should open the daily sessions held to write the founding document of the United States. (Franklin lost the argument, but his passage won a place in history.)


All of which brings us to Cheney's bird-hunting trip at the exclusive Rolling Rock Club in the hills of southwestern Pennsylvania last Monday, when he and nine others in his party shot about 400 out of 500 pen-raised pheasants released for the morning hunt. No one might have noticed the episode if The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had not reported it, including the detail that the vice president had shot more than 70 of the ring-necked pheasants himself.


As a result, a lot of other people noticed the fallen birds: hunters who pursue birds in the wild, the Democratic presidential candidates and the Humane Society of the United States, which likened the shootings to the first day of the Iraq war.


"This can only be called a shooting-gallery operation," said Wayne Pacelle, the senior vice president of the Humane Society, who pronounced himself outraged. "Hunting is supposed to involve some opportunity for the animal to evade the hunter. Hunting in this setting is reduced to mass killing."


Cheney, who almost never speaks to the news media, had no comment on his trip or the identity of his hunting companions, and his office provided only sparse information. White House officials also declined to release photographs that they have of the vice president hunting. But Cheney's spokesman, Kevin Kellems, did say that the pheasants were cleaned, packed and sent to those less fortunate.


"The birds don't go to waste, they go to hunger-relief charities," he said.


Kellems, however, said he could not provide the names or locations of any charities or soup kitchens that received the birds and did not know how they were prepared, when they were served and who in fact ate them.


Details of the exact nature of the hunt were also hard to come by. Officers at the private Rolling Rock Club, which meanders over 10,000 acres in Ligonier Township, about a 90-minute drive from Pittsburgh, did not return calls seeking comment. Employees reached in the club's dog kennels said they had been ordered not to speak to the news media. The employees added that they did not know what had become of Scott Wakefield, a dog handler at the club who was quoted by The Post-Gazette.


If nets were used, bird-hunting experts said, Cheney and his party were probably positioned beforehand with shotguns on the ground or in blinds in trees. Another possibility was that the birds were released from a tower, with Cheney and the others ready for them on the ground. A final possibility was that the pheasants were released early in the day or the night before, and Cheney and his companions went after them on foot.


Whatever the case, hunters generally do not embrace the practice as a substitute for the real thing.


"I don't see anything terribly wrong with it, but I don't think it should be confused with hunting," said Sid Evans, editor in chief of the outdoor magazine Field & Stream. Shooting pen-raised birds, he said, "is a great way to train dogs, and it's a great way to educate young hunters."


Cheney often hunts in the wild, and his office would not discuss how frequently he shoots pen-raised birds at private clubs. The Post-Gazette reported, however, that it was the second time that Cheney had visited Rolling Rock. The newspaper also said Cheney had spent Monday afternoon at the club shooting an undetermined number of mallard ducks.


In October, Sen. John Kerry, a Democratic presidential candidate, shot and killed two pheasants in Iowa with two shots from his 12-gauge shotgun, meant to show his prowess as well as his support for the rights of hunters and an assault-weapons ban. Kerry downed the birds in a cornfield, but it was not at a private club.


"Something here doesn't add up," said David Wade, Kerry's spokesman. "The Bush administration says the economy is improving, but their millionaire vice president has to hunt for his own food."


© 1998-2003 Seattle Post-Intelligencer


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Mon, 12-15-2003 - 10:41pm
That's one of the craziest stories I've read in a long time. What kind of a person would do that? It's just sick and shows a profound lack of respect for...well...everything! What vanity.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Tue, 12-16-2003 - 12:50am

It's definitely a mentality that I will never understand!



iVillage Member
Registered: 10-05-2003
Tue, 12-16-2003 - 3:41am
to me, there is only one logical conclusion for why Cheney did this: he has been killing people (and animals) indirectly for years, but he wanted to actually have the blood on his own hands this time.

He has no heart.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Tue, 12-16-2003 - 5:53am

An ugly wanton act. Sickening. This is even worse than fox hunting.

cl-Libraone

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-14-2003
Tue, 12-16-2003 - 6:40am
My heart aches for each of those poor birds.

Miffy

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 01-23-2004 - 11:17am

More to 'hunting' trip than killing little birdies..........

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Fri, 01-23-2004 - 12:22pm
We are a hunting family. This is sick and totally non-sporting - not at all like foxhunting.

This was no different than shooting fish in a barrel, or dropping buffalo in a pen.

And unless someone can prove that those birds fed someone, I'll never believe it.