No offense John, but if you rely on Chris Matthews and those of his ilk for your sole source of in-depth reporting, then you’ve got bigger problems than Iran reproscessing uranium. Well, maybe that’s still a bigger problem, but the point is, the whatever the chattering heads are going on about doesn’t preclude you or anyone else from reading real news stories and even discussion on those real news stories. I figure people like Chris Matthews know pretty well what brings in the viewership, adn so they cater to that. But that doesn’t mean that this in any way deprives you of anything that you need or were due.
The Vice President really needs to take this important rule to heart.
Fie, fleeting fame; Fie, faithless Fank, fickle follower.
SteveG1
Good posting about gun and hunting safety.
If more people followed those rules, I might actually risk going hunting. 
I’m one of the more liberal posters on this board but I am not anti-gun nor am I anti-hunting.
As far as preventing a “this gun isn’t loaded” disaster waiting to happen incident, my father (a World War II veteran) had a damned good solution - treat the gun as if it is always loaded. It might seem this is erring on the side of caution but it was very effective in preventing any firearms injury. Of course it would not have prevented the Dick Cheney firearms faux pas.
I don’t often agree with Evil, but every year there are stories on the local news about shit-faced hunters - it seems like almost always up to the “wilds” of NH from MA - shoting at things that aren’t game. Like people hanging laundry or across highways and such. Fortunately, they don’t kill people very often. “Alcohol was a factor” is a common refrain.
Well, dammit, woman, if you’re stuck in a room with cardiac and thoracic surgeons by choice, I figure there’s no hope left for you. 
Okay, I know I shouldn’t have laughed at this, but DAMN, it didn’t take long. I got home, hit the “StumbleUpon” button, and got routed to this site. I WANT one!! 
What if we can humorously relate this to truly relevant stuff?
(These are stolen from Air America or the Daily Show, but not verbatim):
Dick Cheney defended his actions, saying he thought the pheasants would “greet them as liberators.”
Cheney believed Whittington was a pheasant based on the best intelligence available at the time. What’s the point in arguing? We can’t change the past. Cheney still did the right thing - knowing what we now know, he’d shoot Whittington again.
If we back down now, and admit shooting Whittington was a mistake, it sends a message to all pheasants that the United States is weak.
Americans don’t have the attention span for all the real stuff, but this grotesque humor really gets through.
TDS send up of this incident was superb. All I am waiting for is Colbert to weigh in.
I see this morning that Mr VP (and Victim) will be cited --for a permit violation. I would much rather not worry about the paperwork and have someone come out progun safety from the WH. McClellan is more of a tool than Fleischer ever was.
Guess this stance all goes along with the whole “I don’t make mistakes. Show a united face. We all beat the same talking points to the ground” gambit that is so popular with this administration.
I really can’t swallow that this WH, of all WHs, thinks that it is just fine for Ms Armstrong to be the one to relate this story first. And maybe the WH pressed corps is finally growing a set. About time.
I doubt I could be more contemptous of this administration. This is (well, not to Mr Whittington) a fairly minor matter–but the whole management of it stinks.
TDS send up of this incident was superb. All I am waiting for is Colbert to weigh in.
I see this morning that Mr VP (and Victim) will be cited --for a permit violation. I would much rather not worry about the paperwork and have someone come out progun safety from the WH. McClellan is more of a tool than Fleischer ever was.
Guess this stance all goes along with the whole “I don’t make mistakes. Show a united face. We all beat the same talking points to the ground” gambit that is so popular with this administration.
I really can’t swallow that this WH, of all WHs, thinks that it is just fine for Ms Armstrong to be the one to relate this story first. And maybe the WH pressed corps is finally growing a set. About time.
I doubt I could be more contemptous of this administration. This is (well, not to Mr Whittington) a fairly minor matter–but the whole management of it stinks.
Apparently the VP has already received his citation: http://www.newsone.ca/piercelandherald/stories/index.php?action=fullnews&id=142498
I have to agree with you there that the VP has the judgment of a twelve year old.
I’ll just never understand this point of view. Is discussion a finite quantity? Is public interest? Does this really mean that both this and another topic cannot be discussed at the same time? And are you arguing that in the absence of the “Cheney shoots an old man in the face” story, we would be able to make some useful point about WMD, or slashing social services, or sneaking a plan to kill Social Security into the budget? Would people be listening to those issues who are instead distracted by this? I don’t think so. How many pages have been spent watching Bricker shuffle and jive about the “movement to create an unintended chilling effect on the recognition of Christmas”?
Why does the administration make sure that there are images of Cheney hunting or Bush clearing brush, especially come election time? Part of the reason Democrats have been failiing, and in my opinion the country has subsequently been suffering for 6 years, is because DLC Democrats think like you do. Perhaps it should be petty and beneath us. Yet Republicans have been winning all sorts of elections on petty and beneath us. I don’t really like where that has gotten us.
The accident in and of itself is of minor importance except to comedy writers. What is more significant is that once again this imperial White House has as its first instinct covering up the story. If the White House had come clean when this first was known to them they wouldn’t be playing as much defense right now. Even more significant is the behavior of the Secret Service. As I understand it, their job is to protect Cheney from criminals, not from duly authorized police. The detail that turned away the local lawmen from interviewing Cheney should be fired. Once again, it seems that Cheney thinks himself above the law. By refusing to meet the lawmen, as he is required to do, it brings to matter of alcohol into the picture. If the police had interrogated him immediately, they could have made a judgement whether to give him a breath test. Now, we’ll never know if alcohol was a factor. The incident is not a huge issue, the handling of it is. Not to mention he was hunting lawyers out of season.
What pisses me off is this: How did we here at the SDMB, with our collected wit and wisdom, miss (AFAIK) the obvious reference -
“Cheney’s Got a Gun”
I can hear the parody in my head, substituting Steven Tyler’s strange sounging opening vocalizations with Cheney’s half open mouth grunt/grumbling.
Cheney’s Got A Gun
Cheney’s Got A Gun
He shot a septuagenarian
Because he lost him in the sun…
I expect he doesn’t put up with bullshit because he’s too busy spewing out a ton of his own; he must hate the competition.
Simpson spent most of his time blaming Whittington, downplaying the seriousness of the incident, and insisting that the announcement was left to the ranch owner as some sort of ‘western’ courtesy (gee, I must have missed that chapter in Miss Manners.)
Simpson was so ‘on message’ I kept expecting the camera to pan up so we could see Rove on the catwalk above pulling the marionette strings while screaming, "Dance, my little puppet, Dance!
To the tune of “Homecoming Queen’s Got A Gun”:
Everybody run, the Vice President’s got a gun!
Cheney smiling and waving his gun
Picking off lawyers one by one
Whittington’s face just got lead zits
The quails on the ground are having a fit!
Everybody run, the Vice President’s got a gun!
No bet, because I know the answer. I just wouldn’t want to be anywhere near an armed drunk - would you?
Discussion is not a finite quantity, but public interest absolutely is. Ask Americans what happened this past weekend: I bet they won’t be able to tell you about the vote in Haiti, about the end of hotel subsidies for Katrina victims, about the additional arsons in Alabama churches.
I’d rather keep focused on what’s important. Sure, this is good for the comedy writers; sure, there’s a minor point in here about the White House’s secrecy; but if Democrats spend their time trying to make hay about a hunting accident, they’ll come across as petty fuckers to the swing voters who need to be convinced that Democrats are serious leaders.
Daniel
giggle - Why do I keep thinking Charles Bronson would have been great in the movie version? ROFL.
Do you really believe that Americans would have been able to tell you about these things if there were no Cheney story? It is a tad naive to think that the Cheney story had anything to do with suppressing public awareness of truly important topics.
Is it the Democrats who are “making hay” out of this? Which Democrats are having to push this story to keep the public interested in it?
Look, it’s wonderful to be idealistic, but the reality of America today is that for all the “discussion” of the important topic of NSA wiretapping, for example, nobody could tell you why Bush felt his actions accomplished something that FISA wouldn’t have allowed him to do anyways. in fact, the more it gets “discussed” the more people are framing it as either we engage in surveillance or we don’t.
I would absolutely like to see him compelled to explain himself, or have someone discuss it intelligently, but the Cheney story is not preventing that from happening; our present media and the manner in which Americans consume it is responsible for that. In fact, for all the discussion of all the important issues, something like the Cheney story will probably do more pervasive good. Perhaps it will even act like a catalyst for other actually important issues to be listened to differently. Okay, now you’ve got me getting all misty with idealism.