The Buckshot's Here

Noting that some people close to Cheney have said he is literally a different person than he used to be, Thomas asks: "Has Cheney changed? Has he been transformed, warped, perhaps corrupted -- by stress, wealth, aging, illness, the real terrors of the world or possibly some inner goblins? . . . [T]here is no doubt that Cheney has become less amiable, less open, less willing to conciliate and seek common ground than he was as a younger politician. A man who was shepherded by the Secret Service to his bunker during 9/11 has stayed there -- even when that has not been helpful to the president."

For some perspective, Thomas revisits the controversy over whether Cheney lied to the 9/11 Commission when he insisted that he spoke with Bush before giving an order to shoot down a hijacked civilian airliner that appeared headed toward Washington. Thomas also reveals a long-ago false alarm that had Cheney and his entourage afraid that they had been exposed to anthrax.

Steve Tuttle writes in Newsweek: "No matter what else they may think of Cheney, hunters around the country agreed last week that the vice president, known as a careful sportsman and a good shot, broke a cardinal rule: in that exhilarating moment when the birds scattered up all around him, he didn't check to make sure his line of fire was clear before he pulled the trigger. 'He lost control of his emotions,' Freck says. 'In a split second, you have to decide all these things at once.' "

Meet the Press

Tim Russert's panel on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday included Cheney adviser Matalin. Russert asked if Cheney only had one beer. Here is part of Matalin's response:

"[Y]ou think the Secret Service would let the vice president out, tanked up, with a loaded gun, or let him be around anybody who's drunk with a loaded gun? It just defies common sense that the press would even go there. And that's why these adversarial question-and-answer periods set up the presumption that Cheney would be drunk, or having to deny that Cheney was drunk, as opposed to presuming what we all know, that he doesn't drink, he wouldn't hunt and drink, the Secret Service wouldn't let anybody around him who is drinking and hunting."

The question remains.

Media Watch

You may recall that at last Monday's press gaggle (see Mark Silva's report), press secretary Scott McClellan implied that NBC reporter David Gregory's pugnacious tone was a pose for the cameras. "Don't be a jerk to me personally when I'm asking you a serious question," Gregory replied.

On "Meet the Press" Gregory apologized: "I think it was inappropriate for me to lose my cool with the press secretary representing the president. . . . I think it created a diversion from some of the serious questions in the story, so I regret that. I was wrong, and I apologize."

Russert followed up: "Bill Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, said this: 'The White House press corps is crazy and pompous, and a lot of them are personally obnoxious as well. Instead of asking about Iran going nuclear, Hamas setting up a government in Palestine, 42 of the 60 questions to Scott McClellan were the White House press corps whining that they didn't get a phone call late Saturday night.' "

Gregory: "Right. And let me just make one other point. Again, it's easy to try to make this a debate about the White House press corps vs. the vice president. No matter how you feel about the White House press corps, and -- and we're worthy of criticism, and we can take our lumps -- this is about how the vice president chooses to communicate to the American people."

David Folkenflik reports for NPR: "Journalists responsible for reporting on the Bush administration say there's a good reason for the grilling: The story represents just their latest frustration in covering this unusually influential -- and elusive -- vice president."

Poll Watch

A Time poll found Cheney's approval rating down to a dismal 29 percent, with 65 percent of Americans thinking he should have taken immediate responsibility for the shooting incident, 58 percent calling him too secretive, 39 percent thinking he was trying to hide something by waiting to disclose the accident, and 10 percent saying he should resign on account of it.