Hey Harry, Is That Broom Loaded?

February 14th, 2006 4:41 PM

In the wake of Vice President Cheney’s hunting accident, Harry Smith did a segment on hunting safety in the 8:00 half hour of this morning’s "The Early Show" on CBS complete with broomsticks. Dressed in an orange vest and holding a broom, Smith may have been confused for a member of the cleanup crew out on the plaza. However, we were informed that the orange vest was a hunting vest and we were supposed to pretend that the broom was a shotgun. But, if they were using brooms to represent shotguns, were the vests necessary, or were they truly fearful that the brooms may accidentally fire?

I can understand why Harry Smith and CBS wouldn’t want to use real guns for the segment, safety concerns for instance, but couldn’t CBS have spent $20 and bought some toy guns for the segment? In any case, Harry Smith’s explanation suffers from delusions of grandeur:

Harry Smith: "We don't have real guns out here this morning because we didn't want to cause an international disturbance."

The only disturbance a real gun, or even a toy replica would have caused is the one among liberals who think all guns are evil.