O K, stop me if you’ve heard this one:

A lawyer, some quail and the vice president of the United States walk into the brush.

And the vice president shoots the lawyer in the face!

Boy, that one gives me a hearty chuckle every time, but maybe it’s funnier when Brit Hume tells it.

Hume of Fox News was one of several conservative “news” types who started the week cracking jokes and trying to minimize the importance of the story that Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot his 78-year-old friend Harry Whittington on Saturday.

Rush Limbaugh was busting a gut, saying, “Would you rather go hunting with Dick Cheney or riding in a car over a bridge with Ted Kennedy?” before criticizing the media for covering “one of the dumbest stories ever,” according to news reports.

Bill O’Reilly made it his “Most Ridiculous Item of the Day” on Monday, and only talked about it more on Tuesday “because some of our competitors are spending hours talking about this Cheney misfire which seems absurd and (Tuesday) their anger seemed to be growing.”

So, it’s the media’s fault?

Silly reporters, trying to make a big deal out of the vice president shooting a man in the face.

It’s one thing for late-night comedians such as Jay Leno, Jon Stewart or Jimmy Kimmel to pop off some one-liners on something like this.

But the only truly funny thing about this is that Hume – who could hardly contain his laughter about the incident during his Tuesday newscast – took such a somber tone when he was granted an exclusive interview with Cheney on Wednesday afternoon.

“Ultimately, I’m the guy who pulled the trigger, that fired the round that hit Harry,” Cheney told Hume. “The image of him falling is something I’ll never be able to get out of my mind. I fired and there’s Harry falling. It was, I’d have to say, one of the worst days of my life at that very moment.”

I wonder if Hume laughed in Cheney’s face as he spoke.

I’m not trying to get all high and mighty about the health of this guy, Whittington, whom I don’t even know. But the fact that he’s laying in an intensive care unit in a Texas hospital at the hands of the vice president, accidental or otherwise, is a big enough deal.

The fact that Cheney decided to have the story disseminated by a Corpus Christi, Texas, newspaper made it the “media frenzy” that O’Reilly &Co. claim it is.

It’s very simple.

From the minute he shot his friend in the face, Cheney shot himself in the foot.

Cheney didn’t immediately announce or make arrangements to announce that he had become the first sitting vice president to shoot a guy since Aaron Burr took out Alexander Hamilton in 1804. (Credit Stewart of “The Daily Show” for the historical vice presidential shooting reference.)

The misfire sparked all kinds of reactions, and they’re not surprisingly dependent upon the political position of who’s doing the talking.

Democrats cried, “Foul,” and said it’s another example of Cheney and the Bush administration’s secretive nature.

True enough.

Republicans mumbled, “What’s all the fuss about? It’s just birdshot!”

Maybe so.

I’m not a hunter. I don’t know birdshot from a jump shot.

But I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to stand in front of a shotgun loaded with the stuff and take a blast in the face. I doubt anyone would.

If Cheney had come out Saturday or Sunday and been as forthright as he was with Hume on Wednesday, the story all week would have been far less controversial. For starters, the “why-didn’t-he-speak-up” questions could never have been asked.

In his Wednesday interview, Cheney came off as a more sympathetic figure than ever. The guy shot his buddy and he feels bad about it.

Any of us can understand that. I mean, I’ve never shot one of my friends, but I’m pretty sure I’d feel bad about it.

But it’s all tainted by the hoopla over why he didn’t open up sooner.

That’s not the media’s fault.

It’s Cheney’s.

Victor Balta’s TV column runs Mondays and Thursdays on the A&E page. Reach him at 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.