Cheney shoots a 78 year old man wearing an orange vest

[Gimpy]

Great article from the Times & The Miami Herald!



###START###

by Leonard Pitts Jr. / Syndicated columnist

The gang that couldn't talk (much less shoot) straight


They'd take my columnist license away if I didn't write about Dick Cheney today.

There are, I suppose, other things going on in the world, but they pale in comparison. Heck, it's not every day a vice president of the United States shoots a guy. As even the remotest village in Malawi must have heard by now, Cheney did just that during a quail hunt last weekend in Texas. While aiming at a bird, he accidentally sprayed his hunting companion, 78-year-old attorney Harry Whittington, with birdshot. This was promptly disclosed to the public. Just 18 hours later.

And even then, the notification was made not through a statement issued by the vice president's office as you would expect, but by a private citizen, the woman who owned the ranch where the shooting took place. Cheney himself did not publicly address the incident until four days later when he gave an interview to Fox News.

Not surprisingly, the V.P. has become the punch line to a national joke. "The Daily Show" dubbed him "Number 2 With A Bullet." David Letterman called him a weapon of mass destruction. Even one of my students got in on the fun, saying this incident, like the Iraq war, illustrates the administration's penchant for shooting first and asking questions later.

Perhaps I'm simply jealous those worthies got all the good jokes first, but when I consider the incident ? and more importantly, the vice president's handling of it ? my first response is not laughter. Unless you mean that pathetic laugh-to-keep-from-crying kind of laughter. In which case, yeah.

Because it occurs to me that this is not just a microcosm of the Iraq war, but of the Bush administration entire.

The analogy is almost painfully perfect: bad decision leads to unfortunate outcome leads to stone wall of arrogance, secrecy and silence. We could be talking about torture, Abu Ghraib, WMD, wiretapping, the Valerie Plame leak ...

But we're talking about a hunting accident.

Point being, it is not scandal, war, corruption or anything else of national import. Nor does it carry any suggestion of nefarious behavior. Addressed promptly and openly, it's the kind of story that would ordinarily flare up and flare out in a day or two. Does anybody even remember the story about the guy who sustained minor injuries in a bike accident with President Bush last year?

To the degree this has metastasized into something more, it reflects disquiet over the closed nature of this administration and its utter disdain for the right of the people to know.

And Cheney's claim, made in the Fox interview, that somehow this boils down to media pique at having been kept out of the loop, is silly. It seems to have escaped his notice that he is the vice president of the United States. What happens to him and the president is of national interest. How many other bicycle mishaps made national news last year?

You have to ask yourself: If they're this close-mouthed about a hunting accident, what kinds of secrets do they keep on matters that matter? What information should you and I have that we don't? What things should we know that we won't until it's too late?

Not national-security secrets, mind you. Just basic information on a government that is, by the way, employed by, and accountable to, us. But we have a president who lives in a yes-man bubble from whence he ventures to hold press conferences only slightly more often than pigs fly. We have a government that has quietly removed millions of government documents from the public domain. And we have a vice president who treats a hunting accident like a nuclear secret.

Not coincidentally, we also have a dubious war based on a dubious premise with a U.S. casualty count ? dead and injured ? of more than 19,000 and rising.

And suddenly it doesn't bother me so much that all the good jokes are taken.

This stuff gets less funny every day.

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.'s column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times

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NO SHIT!

The rumor I heard is that someone yelled, "Look out! Shooter!" and Cheney thought he said Scooter and fired in that general direction. Afterward, he told Mr. Whittington, "Sorry old buddy, thought I had a chance to shut up that scumbag, tatletale feller that is trying to implicate ME for goodness sakes!".............

Anyway, I'm sure Mr. Whittington will be compensated in some way, shape, fashion or form. He'll probably become the ambassador to the Bahamas, or Tahiti or Bermuda or some other tropical paradise as well as a new Vice-President of legal affairs for Halliburton on top of that! You can bet your sweet ass that ole 'Tricky-Dick-Head" hisseff has already lined up some sort of "insurance" to prevent Whittington from spilling the beans on him about any possible involvement of 'alcohol' impairment on the VP's part..


Hell, there's no way Cheney is going to court over this shooting. Even if Whittington sued him for negligence, I'm sure he would refuse to go to court. After all, who's going to force him into court. Surely not the President, who by the way, takes orders from Cheney.

Congress wouldn't force him even if they had the legal means to do so. Congress hasn't held anyone in the Administration accountable or responsible for anything in the last 5 years--simply because no one has recieved a blow job in the Whitehouse (even though there HAS been a whole lot of "SCREWING" going on.........of the American public!). The Supreme Court won't force him into court either--hell, they SE-elected him as Vice President and about half of those on the Court are his hunting 'Buddies"!... .

Just another prime example of how corrupt and unscrupulous these assholes really are.

BRING ON 2006 and 2008!...............Past time for some SERIOUS changes!..............


.

[MORTARDUDE]

let me get this straight....Cheney turned 180 degrees ( or all the way to his back side ) and said he hit someone from 90 feet away when in reality it was 15 feet away...he must have been drunk on his ass...what a bunch of lying losers.

Larry

[reconeil]

Think or believe what you like (most do).
But at 15 feet or 5 yards away with a 12 Gauge,...
even bird shot would produce a dead man
with a very large hole in his chest, instead of
just a normal pattern of pellets, mostly superficial.

Next time hunting with a friend, try it.
You'll see.

Neil

[colmurph]

Gimpy......put it to bed! We all know that Dick Cheny was sleeping with the victims wife and wanted to get him out of the picture.

Who gives a damn about the shooting? Cheny screwed up! Big time!....He didn't kill him so now he can't sleep with his wife! Guess he'll have to resort to his own wife or a palm full of Astroglide........................................ .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ..........................What do you use Gimpy?

[Gimpy]

don't 'screw' folks like your heros do, don't you think you should be asking THEM what they're using instead??

But, since you're so 'close' to them you probably already know, huh?

Just asking!..................