WASHINGTON — Harry Whittington, 78, will be fine, says Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld and that's as good a prognosis as it gets for the Texas lawyer and Republican big shot. He was peppered with bird grape on Saturday and Dick Cheney, the vice president of the United States, was the unlucky hunter who fired his 28-gage shotgun at a quail on a Texas ranch.

Whittington probably wasn't where he was supposed to be in the line of hunters and Dick Cheney didn't see him in time. It was an accident.

Dr. Rosenfeld got into the act because he is an excellent doctor — familiar to the public through his popular writings and countless appearances on television.

Fox News invited the respected professor at New York's Cornell Medical Center to explain the likely nature of the "silent" heart attack and what it meant for Whittington's prognosis.

I would have skipped this information — and this column — were it not for the Washington media behaving like overeager baboons. They puffed up, they trotted, they shouted and all but cried murder even before Whittington's setback on Tuesday. Only a few hours later, my nose picked up the putrid scent of a hopeful death watch.

With intrepid reporters like NBC's David Gregory manning the watch, this story of a common enough hunting accident has gained "legs" — for at least as long as Whittington remains in hospital. It will grow into a major storm should serious complications or worse, God forbid, ensue.

The White House media was furious because neither Vice President Cheney nor the White House rushed out with the information as soon as the hunting mishap happened. So reporters shouted at Press Secretary Scott McClellan, in effect, how dare you not to feed us Dick Cheney's carcass.

The episode goes to the heart of the conflict familiar to all democratic societies: The right to know. This is not a simple matter of right or wrong. Free people have the right to be kept informed, but not all information is equally important. That's where the hassle begins.

The obvious example here is the shooter and the victim. Had Harry Whittington accidentally wounded Dick Cheney it would have been unthinkable to keep it quiet even for an instant. Cheney is a heartbeat away from the Oval Office and what happens to him is vital news. Whittington is a private citizen — as worthy, or more so, as Cheney, but his, and his family's misfortune have no real public implications.

Whittington will be fine, says Rosenfeld and I trust him. So let me return to the media's Big Foot baboonery.

Watching it, I'm satisfied that pole-vaulting, dumpster-sized egos and lust for blood is in play in this mid-term election year — especially when it's Dick Cheney's blood, George W. Bush's blood, and Republican blood.

The New York Times, the administration's implacable foe, gives the game away by keeping the story on the front page since Monday. Trouble is, there still isn't much of a story — short of Whittington's improbable death. But unless I'm grossly mistaken, journalists normally don't create a storm of expectation about a private citizen dying.

The actual motive here is to beat up on Dick Cheney and President Bush, the pair of leaders everybody hates — except, perhaps, the majority of American voters.

It was different when Jimmy Carter was president. While fishing in a pond on his peanut farm in Georgia, he fended off a swamp rabbit heading for his boat.

The date was April 20, 1979. Months later, in August, 1979, Jody Powell, Carter's press secretary, described the encounter to Brooks Jackson, the White House correspondent for the Associated Press.

You know the rest. The "attack rabbit" story led to an investigation and an official White House report, a copy of which I foolishly weeded from my files only weeks ago.

"Jimmy Carter out of favor," reporters mocked with apocryphal accounts of "more mush from the wimp" and the "attack rabbit" — intent on making Peanut One's life even more miserable.

This was the temper of the media while 53 American diplomats were held hostage in Iran by revolutionary fanatics threatening death to the Great Satan in the name of Allah the Merciful.

Jimmy Carter tried to cope with nasty situation at home and abroad as best he could. But even so, the attack rabbit story was funny. It carried much scorn, but little venom.

Dick Cheney isn't so lucky. The Big Foot baboons want his carcass for things he has done, things he has left undone, and even for a regrettably common hunting accident.