Via Crooks and Liars: Editor & Publisher reports on a V.A. nurse investigated for “sedition” for criticizing the Bush Administration:

Laura Berg, a clinical nurse specialist for 15 years, wrote a letter in September to a weekly Albuquerque newspaper criticizing how the administration handled Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War. …

The agency seized her office computer and launched an investigation. Berg is not talking to the press, but reportedly fears losing her job.

…

V.A. human resources chief Mel Hooker had said in a Nov. 9 letter that his agency was obligated to investigate “any act which potentially represents sedition,” the ACLU said.

Peter Simonson, executive director of the ACLU of New Mexico, told The Progressive magazine: “We were shocked to see the word ‘sedition’ used. Sedition? That’s like something out of the history books.”

In a press release, Simonson also said: “Is this government so jealous of its power, so fearful of dissent, that it needs to threaten people who openly oppose its policies with charges of ‘sedition’?”

Accidents happen. I know this from personal experience. But only a few people try to get away with a hit and run. From Editor & Publisher:

The more than 18-hour delay in news emerging that the Vice President of the United States had shot a man, sending him to an intensive care unit with his wounds, grew even more curious late Sunday. E&P has learned that the official confirmation of the shooting came about only after a local reporter in Corpus Christi, Texas, received a tip from the owner of the property where the shooting occured and called Vice President Cheney’s office for confirmation.

The confirmation was made but there was no indication whether the Vice President’s office, the White House, or anyone else intended to announce the shooting if the reporter, Jaime Powell of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, had not received word from the ranch owner.

…

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.”

…

The [Houston] Chronicle also reports Monday that hunting accidents are amazingly rare in Texas. In 2004, it said, the state’s 1 million-plus hunters were involved in only 29 hunting-related accidents (19 involving firearms), four of which were fatal.

Let’s think about this for a second. If one percent of the hunters in Texas were as careless as Dick Cheney, there would have been 10,000 hunting accidents in 2004. If a tenth of one percent were as careless as Cheney, there would have been 1,000 accidents. If one one-hundredth of one percent of Texas hunters were as careless as Dick Cheney, there would have been 100 accidents.

Dick Cheney is in a rarefied group. In 2004, only 0.0019% of hunters in Texas were as careless with a gun as he was on Saturday.

I’ve long thought that we should select exceptional men and women for high office in this country. I just thought it would work out a little differently.