Cheney -- armed, dangerous and just plain gruff (STEINBERG)

[EC]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/steinberg/cst-nws-stein15.html


Cheney -- armed, dangerous and just plain gruff

February 15, 2006

BY NEIL STEINBERG SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST









Why is everybody making such a big deal out of Dick Cheney shooting his hunting companion? According to the Bush administration's view of the Constitution, the president -- or vice president, for that matter -- can shoot whomever he likes, whenever he likes. Rather than fixate on this one case, we should admire Cheney's general restraint. At least this is the first person he shot. As far as we know.

The reason Cheney's mishap provoked such an outpouring of humor -- my favorite is the Jay Leno line about how the vice president tortured his victim for half an hour before shooting him -- is that underneath this episode is a truth so unpleasant it is hard to speak of seriously and directly:

The vice president is a gruff, rich, indifferent, hardhearted SOB devoted to serving the needs of his business buddies. His office has so little respect for the American public that it would wait nearly a full day after the vice president shot somebody before making the news public, and then do it through a Texas socialite spilling to a local paper.

The president, meanwhile, is an affable goof busily bankrupting the country by pushing tax breaks to the wealthy while running an unpopular war that nobody even talks about ending anytime soon.

[caledesi]

1. If the Dick, Cheney is so interested in killing, why doesn't he just

go to Iraq? Oh, that's right, he has "other priorities" like killing PENNED quail for instance.

[bostonbabs]

2. right between the eye!!! n/t