There are many who speak of Vice President Dick Cheney with disrespect. This they should not do.
They say he cares only about taking care of his rich Texas friends. Over the weekend, he proved them wrong.
He showed that to him, all men are created equal. If business requires that he whack a friend, then he will not hesitate to do so.
Of course, he didn’t quite succeed in taking out Harry Whittington (Oh, and thanks to Mike C for the link). But even in this "failure," he showed his greatness. While he is what Sicilians call a "man with a belly," he also has a great heart. In the moment of pulling the trigger, he couldn’t quite bring himself to aim straight.
Of course, there’s another way to look at this. It’s highly likely that the Veep didn’t mean to take the guy out completely. After, would he have used a 28-gauge loaded with bird shot if he had meant to kill?
In any case, the warning was delivered.
The White House has certainly taken the message seriously. Just as Sonny was very suspicious of Caporegime Clemenza after the Don was shot, it looks like the Secret Service is keeping a close eye on the Veep. Above you see a surveillance photo taken of Mr. Cheney as he was sneaking into the office just this morning. Don’t ask me how I got it.
Mr. Whittington got the message, too. According to The Associated Press, "Whittington sent word through a hospital official that he would not comment out of respect for Cheney."
What did Mr. Whittington do to earn this treatment? I’m not sure — after all, he was by all appearances a loyal family retainer, who had dutifully paid his tribute (the $2,000 maximum allowable personal contribution to the 2004 campaign). But according to a member of the Armstrong Family, which owns the ranch on which they were hunting, "He didn’t do what he was supposed to do."
I suppose that’s all we really need to know.
The only question remaining is, does this mean open war with the Whittington Family? I don’t know; hopefully, the other families won’t stand for it. But Mark, I’m telling you as a blogger who appreciates your loyal readership: Watch your back.
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I thought that the headline almost wrote itself: “News from the Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”
BTW, Time Magazine’s website seems to be able to channel the Orwellian tendencies of this administrattion: “White House aides can be expected to say that the Vice President did not shoot Whittington, which suggests a bullet, but rather sprayed him with birdshot, a type of ammunition made up of tiny pieces of lead or steel,” Time predicted.
That seems to be the spin that Bush crony and ranch owner Katharine Armstrong took. She apparently thinks that Cheney “peppered” (or maybe “spritzed”) his pal with shot. “Shot” is such a harsh term, afterall.
It may be that Guns don’t shoot people. Vice Presidents shoot people, but this incident has certainly put the kibosh on Cheney’s run for the top slot in 2008.
As a native of the Chicago suburbs I was quite surprised to learn that former Illinois governor and two-time Democrat candidate for president Adlai E. Stevenson had accidentally shot and killed a playmate, Ruth Merwin, as he was showing off his brother’s hunting rifle. He was apparently thirteen at the time.
Hat tip to Soccer Dad for the info.
Maybe if Cheney hadn’t dodged out of Vietnam, he might be a better shot.
Give Cheney a break! He thought Whittington was trying to cut and run from the quail.
Had Cheney not had better things to do when his country offered a chance to be a “hero” in Vietnam then he probably would have been fragged by his own men.
What a chicken twit.
I notice that Ready to Hurl is not posting from a tent in Iraq.
Compare the current media attempts to blow this story up with their previous refusal to print pictures of John Kerry crawling with his shotgun in a staged “deer hunting” photo, and their “failure” to report that Bill Clinton went goose hunting in Maryland without a license, using the Benelli shotgun he had tried to ban.
That’s sound advice Brad. Next time Dick and I go hunting, I’ll make sure to wear some body armor. Now that Dick has shot one of my distant relatives, perhaps it’s time for him to take a little retraining at the Whittington Center in New Mexico.
Hey, Lee—
Cheney gives every else the chance to be maimed or die for the country when he’s too old.
Why didn’t he take the opportunity when he had the chance— five times?
Of course, he’s not alone. Almost the entire leadership of the Republican Party deserve a white feather for ‘Nam.
Even gungho young Republicans elgible to serve seem suddenly to find pressing reasons to stay safely stateside and out of the the armed services.
I heard that a number of ambitious and ideologically sound Repubs were recruited early on to engineer a rightwing paradise state in Iraq— no income taxes, no government regulation, no gay marriage…
I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the government is now missing $8 billion in Iraq.
Lee –
Don’t feed the trolls.
I saw some of the Saudi reporters asking Gore exactly who was being persecuted. He started stammering about the Arabs who had expired visas or other bad documents. Hmmmm…just like the hijackers did. Now why would our mean ole police want to round up similar Arabs right after Sept 11?
Two dots to connect are one too many for Al Gore.
Wondering today if there would be any possibility of President Bush calling Dick Cheney into the Oval Office and order him to make a statement about the shooting… can anyone picture GWB telling Cheney what to do? And doesn’t that speak volumes about this “presidency”?
If Clinton had killed Vince Foster in a quail hunting accident, would the media have paid this much attention?