The New York Times (Handling of Mishap Creates Strain in the White House Staffs) and the Washington Post (Cheney’s Response A Concern In GOP) both have the Bush side of the White House distancing themselves from Shotgun Cheney.

Michael Goodwin of the NY Daily News opines:

Partisan humor can’t rescue Cheney. Not when a knowing, howling humor fueled by accepted truth has him in its death grip. America, and the world, are not laughing with Cheney. We’re laughing at him. The already diminished value of Cheney’s presence now shrinks to zero.

Meanwhile, MSNBC reports that Katharine Armstong, the host of the canned hunting party, has lobbied the White House:

Armstrong was paid $160,000 in 2004 by the powerful legal firm Baker Botts to lobby the White House, according to records she filed with the U.S. Senate as required by lobbying disclosure rules. The records indicate she was paid the money after she “communicated with the White House on behalf of Baker Botts clients.”

In a phone interview, she told NBC News that in return for the money in one case, she set up a meeting at the White House for a Baker Botts client, although she said she felt she could not release the client’s name.

“A meeting for doing something with one of their clients,” she said, describing the event. “I’m not at liberty to say which.” She says she cannot remember which White House official the meeting was with. She also said that during the inauguration proceedings, she got Karl Rove to speak at a Baker Botts function. “I got them Karl Rove,” she said.

Paul Burka of Slate reports that Texans don’t believe the official story. Among other items:

At what range was Harry Whittington hit? The official story is that the blast from the vice president’s shotgun hit Whittington at a distance of 30 yards. Hunters at the Vaughn Building are skeptical. The hunt took place on a cold, windy afternoon. Whittington and his fellow hunters were probably wearing warm clothing—say, a jacket and a flannel shirt. Cheney was using a 28-gauge shotgun, a smaller-diameter firearm with pellets smaller than BBs. Whittington’s friends question whether the pellets could have penetrated his layers of clothing and skin at that range. Yet two pellets lodged against his larynx, another was in his liver, and another migrated into the heart muscle, causing the heart attack. The pattern of wounds was between the lower chest and the forehead, a pretty tight zone for shot of 30 yards. If the range was considerably less than 30 yards, then it is likely that Whittington’s injuries were worse than the initial statement by Katharine Armstrong indicated. (The blast “knocked him silly,” but “he was fine.”)

The BBC has a good round-up of American opinion. But I prefer watching the media go meta in Newsday:

Already, some are questioning whether Cheney’s accidental shooting of Austin lawyer Harry Whittington on Saturday will harden into metaphor, like Jimmy Carter confronting a rabbit on a golf course or Gerald Ford’s stumbling – relatively insignificant events that crystallize the public feelings about a presidency.

In this case, secrecy surrounding wiretaps and questions of competence surrounding Hurricane Katrina and Iraq could become wrapped up in the errant shot of a vice president whose approval ratings are among the lowest in the administration – just 24 percent in a recent CBS News-New York Times poll.

Lastly, my brother has an editorial in today’s Washington Post. You better damn read it.