Cheney and Ceausescu, birds of a feather:

Dick's hunt-happy weekend in New Jersey reminds me of the old Romanian dictator:

<http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel091100.shtml>

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Ceausescu, the "Comrade Supreme Commander", enjoyed bear hunting ...

Sportsmanship was not Ceausescu's style. Squads of Rumanian forest rangers would spend all of their time preparing an area for a bear hunt. The rangers would tie down half of a dead horse near a watering hole. When a large bear began feeding there, the rangers would notify Ceausescu. He would arrive by helicopter at three a.m., and leave with a bear skin by five.

Frustrated by missing a few shots in the dark, Ceausescu had his security forces steal Western military infrared scopes for his night-time hunting forays. High Communist party officials in other countries, such as East Germany and Czechoslovakia, also enjoyed hunting, and maintained expensive hunting lodges at government expense, while the people went short of meat and fruit.
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I find these "hunts" lame at best and cruel at worst. There's nothing sporting about them. 400 caged pheasants released to hang around and get shot is not my idea of hunting. I've never pheasant hunted, but I think it may be a lot like quail hunting. That is, walk quietly through the brush until you scare up something. Hopefully you're in range to get off a good shot or two. I can't imagine how this could have been done with domesticated pheasants. Did some mid-level aide throw rocks at them to make them fly up or did Cheney just shoot them standing there on the ground?

Another thing, what happened to the meat? I've yet to see anything about that. And, who cleaned the birds? Probably the people that put on the hunt. I've always felt that you clean what you shoot, not someone else. Its a nasty little task, but that goes along with shooting it and Cheney shot like 80 of them. Wonder if Cheney bothered to get some pheasant blood on his hands.

Cheney may be a good shot having knocked down (or assassinated) 80-something birds. But I think it would have been more sporting to shoot clay pigeons.