Of course, some of you already know I’ve never been the Vice President’s biggest fan. I’ve often confused him with Lon Cheney, and yes, I’ve had him in my sights before…er, so to speak. But I find it unconscionable that the left wing punditocracy is having such unearned fun over Cheney’s unfortunate hunting accident. I mean who is the victim here? The Vice President, who was deprived of the chance to become a marksman through proper training in Vietnam just because he had other priorities, or some wealthy Texan (a conservative and a lawyer—hello!) who had the bad sense to go on a hunting trip with ol’ Duck! Cheney?
Fun’s fun, but really, come on. We can’t just keep taking pot shots at some poor civil servant who gave up a lucrative position at Halliburton just so he could serve his country by greasing the wheels for no-bid contracts for the same company. Here he is, working so hard on behalf of the people that he had to take some valuable workdays off in order to shop for a mansion in Maryland, nevermind that he did it while Katrina churned into the Gulf Coast—and here people are making jokes at his expense.
But has anyone ever stopped to ask the tough questions? What was Wittington doing there, dressed like that, at that time of whatever day it turns out to have been, with a Vice President like that? I’m not exactly saying he was asking for it; but, who goes on a hunting trip with Dick Duck! Cheney? Duh! Everybody knows why Tony Soprano never got into that golf club, if you know what I mean. People who value their own health just aren’t comfortable being around possibly marked men. I know everyone says Cheney is an avid hunter. But I can’t seem to picture him traipsing through the brush in his $900 Guccis. I keep thinking of that Monty Python bit, where the king has a sort of skeet shooting contraption that launches peasants in the air every time he yells, “Pull!”
It could be that it was a simple accident after all. As Tom Lehrer famously pointed out decades ago: tons of people shoot their friends hunting, easily mistaking them for… “a deer in a bright red hat.” And the self-righteous left goes on and on as if they never shot a friend in the face.
We’ve already heard from one right-wing gasbag after another that apparently an accident like this happens all the time. According to Anne Armstrong, on whose honest Republican cloth ranch the incident was belatedly revealed to have taken place, it wasn’t that big a deal. “He got pretty well peppered,” was all she said of the impudent nearly-octagenarian attorney in Cheney’s line of fire.
Did anyone ever stop to remember that the Bush cartel hates lawyers that aren’t currently working on a bribery, election theft or war crimes case for them? Maybe, it was a sort of warning shot across the brow, if you will, for the legal community. Maybe, Cheney mistook Wittington for Pat Fitzgerald.
But all these speculative reasons are kind of beating around the Bush without taking aim at the real issues. Cheney must have winced when Bush told an audience of combat troops that “I have an injury too.” Even the administration's disguised Darth Vader can’t think it’s in good taste to compare a scratch from clearing brush to poor kids being sent to Iraq to fight his boss' war by getting their limbs blown off. Maybe, just maybe—but you’d never hear the liberal press say it—maybe ol’ Duck! was just trying to lend a little more seriousness to the injuries of an elite who is as quick to send others’ kids to die as they are to eschew military service themselves. You want risk? You want danger? You want authentic? How about getting shot in the face! Take that, Fiddy Cent! And no body armor! Take that, Tom Tolles! But I digress.....
Of course, there is the nonsense about how it took so long for the incident to be reported. Could that be just typical left wing “coverup” whining? Some criticism does seem on target. I got one email with the following complaint: “I have no health care, and this bastard has an ambulance on call?? We are sooo [f-ed]!”
Where's the compassion for poor Attorney Wittington? Could that be a problem for the Bush House of Cards? If they keep blaming him for his own shooting, he just might pull an Abramoff or a Brownie. Loyalty only goes so far.
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