'duck, It's Dick' Tees Hit Target

Sun Herald

Sunday February 19, 2006

IRIS KUO

IT isn't over for Dick Cheney just yet. Now come the bumper stickers and T-shirts.

Try typing "Cheney shooting" into a search engine. You'll see everything from coffee mugs to sweatshirts taking a swipe at the US Vice-President's unfortunate quail hunt.

There's the popular "I'd rather hunt with Dick Cheney than ride with Ted Kennedy" bumper sticker, yours for $US3.49 ($4.73). Or the Deadeye Dick's Gun Club T-shirt, complete with fake bulletholes, for $US18.99

Amateur artists, aided by illustration software and the internet, are hitting eBay and CafePress.com, the biggest online instant T-shirt company. They're trying to catch the wave of interest in "Quailgate", as one tee dubs it, before it expires.

Entrants try to:

* Grab laughs: "I went hunting with the Veep, and all I got was shot."

* Make a political jab: "Cheney can't find bin Laden, but it's open season for elderly lawyers."

* Coin a catchphrase: "Duck, it's Dick!" and "Ready, Fire, Aim!"

* Earn a quick buck off of a popular joke: Cheney's got a (gun).

"It's pretty amazing, actually," said Marc Cowlin, spokesman for CafePress.com, which makes shirts and other products from designs created and sold by their clients. He predicted hot sales for Cheney items for another week to 10 days.

The company's sales of politically themed goods are up 72 per cent since last Sunday, when the White House acknowledged that Cheney had accidentally hit a fellow quail hunter on a ranch in south-eastern Texas. The company has more than 800 Cheney-themed items in production.

Cowlin said CafePress.com only made products that clients had designed and commissioned after a shopper ordered them.

Some designers aren't in it for the money. Connie Hughes, 50, of Waco, Texas, for example, is offering 10 listings on eBay just to make a political point. Her design depicts a baffled Cheney hunting by a pond, where a duck calls the Vice-President "a lame duck".

"It's a way to make a public statement," Hughes said. "Quite honestly, I couldn't care less if any of them sold. We wouldn't want to profit off someone else's ill fortune."

She said she also tried to be tasteful, holding off her mockery until it was clear Cheney's 78-year-old victim, Harry Whittington, was OK.

News stories often spark shirt and sticker sales. The biggest was September 11, 2001, which generated slogans, shirts and stickers for six months. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan bred lots of troop support material.

Last year produced another wave when the romance between actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes became hot news. Among the most popular items, in response to Cruise's seemingly over-the-top behaviour, were "Free Katie" tees.

David Beauzley, 37, of Ashton City, Tennessee, an eBay seller of Cheneywear, said he's in it mostly for the fun.

"There's nothing wrong with making a quick buck, but I want to make people laugh," Beauzley said. "I'm sure even Dick Cheney would look at them and laugh about it."