“Fortunately, the vice president has got a lot of medical people around him and so they were right there and probably more cautious than we would have been.”

WTF? He gets hit with birdshot bad enough that someone has to hold his face, and Cheney’s spokesperson implies that taking him to the hospital was maybe unnecessarily cautious?

Man, I hate this administration.

On the other hand, this has the makings of a brilliant joke. It has everything: a republican, a lawyer, and a shotgun. No matter how you cut those three, it’s always going to be a winner.

Yeah, I heard about this. For whatever it says about me, the first words out of my mouth were: “Good! I’M GLAD”.

The latest is that he shot six more people and is holed up in the hunting lodge.

rick

Man, I hate this administration.

I’m with you on that, sister. The guy is still having lead shot plucked out of his face and Cheney’s staff is already spinning the incident. I wait for the Republican/lawyer/shotgun jokes with bated breath.

I don’t think it says anything about you. What it says, I think, is you can’t be surprised if you get shot when you go hunting with Mad Dog Cheney.

Hey Rick! Yeah, when Cheney says “They’ll never take me alive!” he’s not kidding: that boat sailed during the Nixon administration.

“Scooter, it’s Dick. Wanna go hunting this weekend?”

“Uh, Boss, are those hand grenades?”

The article says that a profile of Whittington said he has “a fierce competitive spirit and antipathy toward government power.” I bet.

And Shrub appointed the owner of the ranch as hunting commissioner when he was governor.

This is one of those things about which nothing need be said, eh?

When I was a young teen, I went pheasant hunting with a number of family members. Once, as I was “posting” (not the Savage Love reference, you pervert) at then end of a field, my grandfather, uncle, father, and a friend or two of theirs all fired at a pheasant that had taken flight (interesting side note: We have guided their evolution to reduce the number of pheasants which take flight).

Anyhow, about five people shot me with their shotguns from about 50-60 yards away. It was like a hailstorm. At that range, however, it doesn’t really hurt. But it’s as startling as hell!

Chris

Geez, a rural firing squad. I bet that got your attention. “Chris, do you want to go deer hunting… Chris? Chris? <looks at hole in the air where Chris was standing a second before>

It’s not that nothing more could be said about Mad Dog Cheney’s hair trigger reflexes (though if you told me “Vice” shot someone, my first guess wouldn’t have been a Republican lawyer), but that there are so many rich veins of humor here I just can’t choose between them.

Now he has a nervous tic and an exaggerated startle reflex.

Heh, they did take me deer hunting, and it was similar… hey, wait, that’s not funny.

True, that’s what I meant about Cheney. I mean, what, you have to work to make a joke about this one? Sheesh. It’s not even symbolic so much as just exemplary.

It’s not even symbolic so much as just exemplary.

And that is the mot juste.

Great fodder for late-night comics, of course. This sequence (courtesy The Wall Street Journal) made me spit my coffee this morning. John Stewart opens up saying,

Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a man during a quail hunt at a political supporter’s ranch. Making 78-year-old Harry Whittington the first person shot by a sitting VP since Alexander Hamilton.

“Hamilton, of course, shot in a duel with Aaron Burr over issues of honor, integrity and political maneuvering. Whittington? Mistaken for a bird.And then he brings on Rob Corddry, “our vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst,” who says:

Jon, tonight the vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Wittington. According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush.

And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington’s face.

Hah! I read that this morning, too. And I saw bits of Leno (who, of course, had to make a gratuitous reference to Clinton’s sexual escapades) and Craig Ferguson. Ferguson seemed the most delighted by the absurdity of the news. “I don’t have my green card yet,” he said. “I’m so deported.”

When I wrote that, I had no idea the poor man would go through all of this. I thought he got sprayed seriously enough to have Cheney put through the wringer for being irresponsible, but would end up going home that night. How naive of me.

If any priests are reading this..No, I DON’T rejoice when someone is seriously hurt.

I’m off to find a rosary or something.

…I had no idea the poor man would go through all of this…. How naive of me.

Not naive: that’s the spin that Cheney’s staff and wealthy lobbyist friend put on the incident. It’s a rarity in this administration that the truth intruded so quickly and forcefully.

And yeah, there are a lot of priests reading this blog.