Discussion Topic: Tim Pawlenty Under Gun Over Wounded Buck

From the Minnesota AP News:
Gov. Tim Pawlenty shot a buck during the Governor’s Deer Opener [on November 7], but he and his hunting companions were unable to find the wounded animal. . . .

“We gave her the old college try two days in a row,” said Mark Johnson, executive director of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association and an organizer of Pawlenty’s annual outing. . . .

[T]he governor was unable to keep up the search because he had to leave for Iowa . . . [to speak] at a Republican Party fundraiser. . . Saturday night.

Johnson said the rest of the hunting party — 10 people with close to 200 years of cumulative hunting experience among them — went looking for the governor’s deer but determined that it wasn’t all that seriously hurt.

This report broke while I was away bowhunting in Iowa–but like the governor’s buck, the story is still kicking, with the potential GOP presidential candidate taking heat from nonhunters and hunters alike. For example, from the Star Tribune:

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has taken a drubbing from hunters for not tracking down a deer he shot on opening day of Minnesota’s firearm deer season.

A [contributor] on deerhuntingchat.com wrote: . . . “What kind of slob hunter goes out opening morning and shoots a deer knowing full well you won’t have time to retrieve it or tend to it? One whose presidential ambitions override his hunting ethics, that’s what kind.”

Check out both articles, then tell us what you think. Was the governor wrong to leave the search to his companions? Or has the whole thing been blow out of proportion?