The jokes are pretty much gonna write themselves over the Cheney accidentally shoots fellow hunter incident, aren't they? Stina's right - it's like someone wanted to give Jon Stewart a present.

On the not-so-funny side of things, here's a question that needs an answer:

While E&P was first to raise the question about the delay Sunday afternoon, Frank James, reporter in the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau, put his own spin on it later in the day, asking, "How is it that Vice President Cheney can shoot a man, albeit accidentally, on Saturday during a hunting trip and the American public not be informed of it until today?"

Indeed, others raised questions as well. "There was no immediate reason given as to why the incident wasn't reported until Sunday," The Dallas Morning News observed. "The sheriff's office in Kenedy County did not respond to phone calls Sunday."

UPDATE: Mark Evanier asks a good question: Why is the man who's a heartbeat away from the presidency out hunting?

Shouldn't the Secret Service still say, "Uh, Mr. Vice-President, we don't like you being around people with guns"? I mean, isn't there some unnecessary security risk in there? Even if everyone in the hunting party passes a rigid security clearance, the Secret Service is supposed to keep weapons away from the Veep. And if Cheney could accidentally shoot this poor guy, isn't there some danger of this poor guy accidentally shooting Cheney?

I always understood that when you run for public office of this magnitude, you agree to sacrifice a certain amount of privacy and freedom to the folks charged with protecting you. Anyone here remember Ronald Reagan claiming the reason he didn't attend church more often was because the Secret Service thought it was a security risk and asked him not to? I'm no fan of Mr. Cheney but couldn't he put off killing quail 'til he's out of office? There'll be ducks then. There may not be a future for our economy but there'll be quail.

UPDATE: Michael has the same question in the comments, which I didn't see until after I'd posted the previous update.