Our fellow blogger Len Butcher takes issue with the media focusing on the story of Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shooting a fellow hunter Saturday. Why was the media so upset that they weren’t told until the owner of the ranch decided, a day later, to let the local paper know, Butcher wonders?

Yeah. We never thought we’d ever have to write this next line, but here goes: The vice president of the United States shooting somebody, accidentally or not, is what we call a news story.

Of course, the first priority when something like this happens is tending to the guy who Cheney shot, Austin lawyer Harry Whittington. He was assisted by Cheney’s medical team, and ferried to a nearby hospital by Cheney’s ambulance. (Cheney himself didn’t go; instead, he had dinner, but was, one dining companion said, “very worried.”)

But once that situation is under control, like it or not, the accident has to be reported, to the local sheriff’s department, and to the media. Deliberately not telling anyone for a day looks to us in the media like a cover-up. And there’s a subtext of secrecy — created by Cheney — that undergirds this incident.

Don’t forget, this is the vice president who may or may not have told his chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, to leak the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. This is the vice president who had meetings with energy industry leaders to produce a task force report that the entire nation will have to live under, but refuses to say who helped him formulate the recommendations. This is the same vice president who insists that the U.S. Naval Observatory, where the vice president lives, be obscured in Google Earth photos, when even the White House itself is shown. This is the vice president who played a key role in taking us to war in Iraq based on what one author calls “cherry picked” intelligence — and Cheney made multiple visits to Langley to do the picking. The guy has a history of being dangerous, not just with 28-gauge hunting shotguns, but with secrets.

Butcher also wonders when the media is going to give up on the “old cry” that the people have a right to know. Gee, until Hurricane Katrina hit, we thought the media had given up on the people’s right to know, as President Bush and his administration tamed them with the rubric of Sept. 11, 2001. But lately, with the hurricane fallout, the NSA spying scandal, and other stories, the media seem to have gotten at least a little of their passion back. We cheer that development: No legitimate government should be afraid of scrutiny. And when a government is afraid of scrutiny, it generally means its doing something very wrong. Nixon, anyone?

To sum, we’re glad the media got aggressive with White House press secretary Scott McClellan, whose dissembling from the press room podium brings shame upon the entire White House. Instead of backing off, as Butcher seems to wish they would, the press corps should get even more aggressive.

Oh, and Cheney should take a hunting safety refresher course.

UPDATE: Vice President Dick Cheney did visit Whittington in the hospital the day following the shooting, according to Time magazine.

UPDATE: The Associated Press is now reporting that Harry Whittington, the 78-year-old lawyer accidentially shot by Vice President Dick Cheney has some birdshot lodged in his heart, and had “a minor heart attack.” His injuries, we are assuming, are perhaps more serious than was first reported, which explains his initial treatment in a Corpus Christi hospital’s intensive care unit.

Those deadbeats over at the Fremont Street Experience are finally paying their debts to the American Civil Liberties Union, after losing a lawsuit that should never have been necessary in the first place. The ACLU was forced to use a legal maneuver meant to garnish the wages of deadbeat dads before the collection of downtown casino owners that make up the Experience finally paid off the $86,360.55 in legal fees awarded to the ACLU in October.

The whole thing could have been avoided had the city and the Fremont Street Experience not conspired in 1997 to try to suspend the First Amendment on the pedestrian mall. Instead, lawyers said leafleting, soliciting and proselytizing on the street wasn’t permitted, because it was private. (This despite the fact that ex-Mayor Jan Jones once labeled Fremont Street a “public park” in order to justify giving room tax money to the venture.

Of course, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, since they, unlike lawyers for the city or Fremont Street, have apparently read the First Amendment a time or two since graduating from law school. The case was sent back to Nevada’s federal courts, and the Fremont Street Experience and the city were told to pay the ACLU’s attorney fees. Rightly so. We’d suggest substantial penalties or even jail time for those engaged in a conspiracy to deprive citizens of their constitutional rights, but we’re radical that way.

Of course, the Fremont Street Experience dragged its feet, forcing the ACLU’s hand. On Tuesday, the Review-Journal reported that the Experience, and not city taxpayers, would bear the cost.

We’d hope that this would be a lesson to all attorneys, public and private, who would seek to turn any public forum (including the sidewalks in front of casinos) into the private enclave of monied gambling interests. But $86,000 isn’t really a large enough sum to send a message. So, we expect to see this kind of battle rage yet again, somewhere, and probably soon.

Good thing the ACLU bills out fairly cheap.