The New York Times editorial:
Let’s see. The vice president of the United States accidentally shot someone while bird-hunting on a Texas ranch. It took the White House nearly 24 hours to share that information with the rest of the nation because Dick Cheney thought it would be better for the ranch’s owner to give the story to the local newspaper first. And by the way, it was all the victim’s fault.
That’s their story, and they’re sticking with it.
[…]
The vice president appears to have behaved like a teenager who thinks that if he keeps quiet about the wreck, no one will notice that the family car is missing its right door. The administration’s communications department has proved that its skills at actually communicating are so rusty it can’t get a minor police-blotter story straight. And the White House, in trying to cover up the cover-up, has once again demonstrated that it would rather look inept than open.
The Washington Post editorial:
HOW IS IT THAT the vice president of the United States can shoot and wound someone and the American public doesn’t learn of it until 18 hours later — and then only because the owner of the location where the event occurred decided the next day to tell a local reporter? The White House has no satisfactory answer; neither does the vice president’s office. […]
Mr. Cheney did not check his official title at the Armstrongs’ front gate. That was no private citizen who pulled the trigger, sending someone to the hospital. That act, though accidental — and doubtless both agonizing and embarrassing — was committed by the country’s second-highest public official. Neither Mr. Cheney nor the White House gets to pick and choose when to disclose a shooting. Saturday’s incident required immediate public disclosure — a fact so elementary that the failure to act properly is truly disturbing in its implications.
The San Francisco Chronicle editorial:
[…]This evasive, haphazard treatment speaks volumes about the White House’s clunky handling of the unexpected. This is a crew that doesn’t want to open up if the results can’t be scripted, controlled or tidied up.
[…]
No one’s asking for a press conference grilling, Mr. Vice President, just an acknowledgement that the public deserves a plain-spoken explanation from the man responsible. And please, don’t try that line about executive privilege protecting the White House from outside inquiry.
There’s an arrogance about the incident that pushes it past the first level of jokes and White House embarrassment. A relatively small event in the scheme of world affairs now takes on extra significance, all due to a White House that can’t face reality.
And finally, from Jack Ohman, the editorial cartoonist of the Portland Oregonian:
Where’s the station to board the Three-Nine? I want off this planet, please.