Three years earlier, Cheney's hunting also made the news. Even before John Kerry's concession speech in 2004, the Veep commandeered Air Force Two to Pierre, SD--thank you taxpayers--where a motorcade sped him to a Gettysburg area hunting lodge for a victory hunt.
Unfortunately, Cheney's defibrillator failed him after shooting one too many pheasants and he was rushed to George Washington Medical Center in Washington DC where comedians joked he had a reserved parking space. He was hospitalized for shortness of breath. "Sorry we ruined your Saturday," the Veep's wife Lynne Cheney told reporters gathered at the hospital. Cheney was going to be fine and he got plenty of shooting in, she said.
Even without questions about racism, sexism and use of taxpayer funds, Cheney's love of blood sports raises ethical questions. Outdoor columnists denounce the put-and-take "hunting" Cheney fancies as gratuitous killing of tame birds that requires no skill and gives animals no chance. "Watching pen-raised pheasants lumber into the air is not my favorite form of upland game hunting," wrote the Peoria Journal Star's Jeff Lampe. "Give me wild roosters any day over their fat, dumb domesticated cousins."
"If they're off in some dumb spot, like the middle of a cut milo strip, hopping around and wondering at the fuss, you can figure they arrived in a basket," wrote the late John Husar, the Chicago Tribune's outdoor reporter.
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