Freedom of Press is limited to those who own one - H.L. Mencken

Be Vewy Vewy Quiet

by West Virginia Rebel

Mike Huckabee, the mighty hunter!

Republican Mike Huckabee took his presidential campaign for a quick pheasant-hunting expedition in Iowa on Wednesday, and at one point, a reporter asked why he hadn’t invited sporting enthusiast Dick Cheney along. “Because I want to survive all the way through this,” Huckabee replied, in a chuckling dig at the vice president’s accidental shooting of a quail-hunting partner last year.

Any good sportsman, though, couldn’t miss a distinctly Cheneyesque moment in the press accounts of the former Arkansas governor’s morning hunt: At one point, Huckabee’s party turned toward a cluster of reporters and cameramen and, when they kicked up a pheasant, fired shotgun blasts over the group’s heads.

This, friends, is dangerously bad hunting form.

Your Swamp correspondent, the son of a longtime hunter education instructor, grew up plying the corn rows and stream banks of rural Oregon with a Labrador retriever and a Mossberg 20-gauge pump shotgun. On our hunts for pheasant, grouse and quail, merely swinging a gun barrel in the general direction of another person was grounds for day-long banishment to the truck (which smelled like wet dog).

Suffice to say, if any of our hunting mates had pulled a stunt like Huckabee’s yesterday, we never would have invited them back. It’s the sort of behavior that drives safety-conscious hunters up the wall, because it reinforces a reckless, gun-totin’ stereotype.

My colleague James Oliphant reports that Huckabee’s party was about 75 yards away from the press corps Wednesday when a pheasant jumped up and flew toward the reporters, drawing several shots. “That was too close,” he reports a cameraman saying.

Perhaps Huckabee missed hunter’s safety classes – Arkansas only requires them for hunters born after 1968 – but the etiquette on this point is clear.

“Never point a firearm at yourself or others,” the International Hunter Education Association declares in its Basic Safety Rules. Later, it adds, “Never point your firearm at something you do not intend to shoot. Make sure you positively identify what you are shooting at and know what lies in front of and beyond it.”

Huckabee emerged happily from his hunt, three dead pheasants in tow, Oliphant reports. Asked for a metaphor to describe the hunt, he replied, “Don’t get in my way. This is what happens.”

I’m surprised Huckabee could still walk during the hunt, considering how many times he’s been shooting himself in the foot lately.

Comments

Posted by on 12/29/07 at 07:53 AM from

I saw the video and it was the first thing I thought; it is the first thing drilled into you when you pick up a shot gun - at no point do you ever aim it anyone; be it loaded or not. I wonder if this guy has really ever used one before.

I do find it hysterical though that Presidential candidates have to go out shooting; this was something I first did about age 8, it’s not something you need to be very manly to do!

Posted by on 12/29/07 at 09:34 AM from

Let’s be honest, who hasn’t wanted to take a shotgun to the press?

Posted by on 12/29/07 at 11:15 AM from

What I find laughable is that if Huckabee were a nonreligious Catholic or an atheist, you guys would probably love him.

I have to wonder why the press is even near a hunting party.

Posted by Thrill on 12/29/07 at 12:36 PM from

What I find laughable is that if Huckabee were a nonreligious Catholic or an atheist, you guys would probably love him.

I assure you that I have no problem with religious candidates.  I’m opposed to Huckabee because of his actions while governor of Arkansas.

I have to wonder why the press is even near a hunting party.

Because they wanted to get video of Huckabee blasting somebody in the face.  It’s really that simple, I’m afraid.

Still, he was using a 12 gauge Benelli pump shotgun.  Excellent weapon; I used to own one.  I still don’t want to vote for him but I’ll give him credit for knowing his stuff.

Posted by HARLEY on 12/29/07 at 01:53 PM from

there were dumb asses on both sides, they should never had took that shit, but at 75 yards and above teh heads of the reporters, they were in little danger… aside from a phesent falling on them.

Posted by HARLEY on 12/29/07 at 02:29 PM from

Well i build me a new PC WOOT a Christmas present to my self…

AMD 3.2 ghz 64 x Dual core
4 gg of PC 6400 DDR Ram
dual 250 Gig WD SATA drives Gigabyte Aurora case
610 watt PSU
Nvidia 8800 GTS 640 MB vid card..
soundblaster X-fi card…
2.1 speakers at 200 watts.

My workstation

Posted by on 12/29/07 at 04:46 PM from

What exactly is 4 gg of Ram?  Do you have a lot of sheep in your computer?

/smartass off

Posted by HARLEY on 12/29/07 at 05:16 PM from

LOL
i was mutitaskign hard when i typed that LOL 4 Gig of DDR RAM

Posted by West Virginia Rebel on 12/29/07 at 05:51 PM from

Do you have a lot of sheep in your computer?

No, that’s the people who run Democratic Underground ; )

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