Cheney, Bush Take Shots at Kerry’s Hunting Credentials

Hours after Sen. John F. Kerry took aim Thursday at Canada geese flying over the Mahoning Valley in Ohio, Vice President Dick Cheney fired at Kerry’s credentials as a hunter.

“The senator who gets a grade of F from the National Rifle Assn. went hunting this morning,” Cheney said at a midday rally at the Tam-O-Shanter Sports Field House, a community recreation center in this suburb of Toledo.

The vice president mocked Kerry, saying his camouflage jacket was brand-new. A spokesman for Kerry said the senator borrowed it from one of the men with whom he was hunting.

“My personal opinion is the new camo jacket is an October disguise, an effort he’s making to hide the fact that he votes against gun-owner rights at every turn,” Cheney said. “This coverup isn’t going to work. You and I know the 2nd Amendment is more than just a photo opportunity.”

President Bush wasn’t impressed with the hunting expedition either.

Editing one of the lines he regularly fires at Kerry, the president, campaigning in Pennsylvania, said: “He can run, he can even run in camo, but he cannot hide.”

For Kerry, who said he began hunting when he was 12, the excursion was an opportunity to demonstrate an affinity with anglers and hunters.

Bush is a regular fisherman, spending time on the banks of a pond he had built and stocked at his Texas ranch. Cheney is an avid hunter and fisherman.

The vice president, who continued to mock Kerry at a rally later in Ashwaubenon, Wis., near Green Bay, said: “Sen. Kerry’s spokesman says that the hunting trip and ... watching the baseball game are part of an end-of-the-campaign plan to give the voters, quote, ‘a better sense of John Kerry the guy,’ end quote,” Cheney said. “Of course, he does need a little image repair.”