The Humane Society is upset because Dick Cheney went "hunting" for pheasants. Fine. But where is the outrage over the fact that our elected leaders are off shooting at pheasants when they could be doing something that real people do - like working two jobs to pay for college or protesting AARP for supporting the weak prescription drug plan for seniors? The super-rich hunt pheasants in their spare time. Next time, let's try to pick someone who doesn't.

All of which brings us to Mr. Cheney's bird-hunting trip at the exclusive Rolling Rock Club in the hills of southwestern Pennsylvania last Monday, when he and nine others in his party shot some 400 out of 500 pen-raised pheasants released for the morning hunt. No one might have noticed the episode if The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had not reported it, including the detail that the vice president had shot more than 70 of the ring-necked pheasants himself.

As a result, a lot of other people noticed the fallen birds: hunters who pursue birds in the wild, the Democratic presidential candidates and the Humane Society of the United States, which likened the shootings to the first day of the Iraq war. (via the New York Times)