Bush "satisfied" with Cheney's explanation

President Bush declared his support for the way Dick Cheney managed the aftermath of the Whittington shooting and the explanation the vice-president offered yesterday on Fox News.

But Bush declined to discuss a continuing controversy over a delay in disclosing the incident and the way in which it was eventually made public. The shooting was disclosed the day after it happened when the owner of the ranch called a local Corpus Christi newspaper. Cheney, whose penchant for secrecy has come under sharp criticism, spoke about the accident publicly for the first time yesterday in an interview with the Fox News Channel.

Bush, breaking his own silence about the accident, said, "I thought the vice president handled the issue just fine. And I thought his explanation yesterday was a powerful explanation."

Bush appears to be unaware of the way this scandal has caused many people to wonder who, exactly, wields the power in his White House. Cheney's contempt for the press and the American people and his apparent disregard for how the scandal could affect the administration is an embarrassment to Bush. It appears that, but for the intervention of Bush's most loyal retainer, Cheney would not even have bothered to sit down with Brit Hume on Wednesday.

President Bush's top political aide, Karl Rove, pushed Vice President Dick Cheney to speak publicly about shooting a fellow hunter, sources tell CBS News.

Rove worried the vice president's silence on the issue was becoming a political problem, CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports.

The president's determination to stand behind this toxic politician, even as he puts Bush's presidency as risk is positively cringe-inducing