E-mails are flying fast and furious, most of them criticizing me for living in a “concrete jungle” and not understanding that, hey, hunting accidents are very common, every hunter has been peppered with buckshot, the accident was probably Whittington’s fault, and that this is all a media frenzy and the last thing the Vice President need do is apologize or say anything. To which I have to reply: Wow. You people are tough. Tougher than the White House is going to be, I assure you, because Dick Cheney will have to say something about this, and the tone he will have to strike is one of rueful sorrow for having caused — even inadvertently — a serious injury to a friend. It is the appropriate and proper thing to do, by the way. You are free to consider this unjust and unfair. I assure you that any argument that begins, “So the Vice President shot somebody, big deal,” isn’t going to prevail.