I think the Cheney story is officially dead.He got away with it

[saracat]

and while we were blathering about that Bushco sold our ports via a defense contract to the Arab Emirates . New York and New orleans included are now to be controlled by a country with links to the 9-11 hijackers and there is no outcry! As Bennett said"where is the outrage' ? And no news organization or any progressive groups has even whimpered. Chuck Schumer seemed "concerned" and said we should take "seriously" who controls our ports. Wow! Take a stand Chuck. I am really depressed about the state of this nation.

And recently I had all my posts deleted on a nonpartisan BB because I stated I thought it was unprofessional to post Bible quotations on business letterhead. I was told by the people that they thought it was acceptable for firms to only hire Christians and that if it was part of a persons belief to give "witness' that they were entitled to as America was a 'free country" and if I didn't like it, I should leave! I responded that "freedom of religion" also encompassed "freedom from religion". I am probably banned. This is depressing as I thought people were waking up and I felt hopeful. This wasn't even a conservative site! But maybe not.

I was also told by party officials this week that we have to understand that we aren't going to win some elections and we shouldn't even bother to try. I responded that it was defeatist and that the way to guarantee not winning is not to have a candidate, or to have one and tell them they can't win.

I hope I develop a better attitude . Something has got to happen to give me hope, doesn't it? I usually spring back but it seems to be taking longer these days. There is hope out there isn't there?

[tatertop]

Of course. Did anyone really think differently?

[okieinpain]

42. thank you. I surprised that anyone thought this was anything more

then joke material for jay leno.....

[tatertop]

48. amazing, isn't it?

Darn, our hopes are dashed again! :)

[emulatorloo]

1. good news - "Democrats plan bill to block Dubai-US port deal"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x452192

[rodeodance]

4. i hope not too late.

and while we were blathering about that Bushco sold our ports via a defense contract to the Arab Emirates . New York and New orleans included are now to be controlled by a country with links to the 9-11 hijackers and there is no outcry! As Bennett said"where is the outrage' ?

[RagingInMiami]

13. Meanwhile, they allowed the Patriot Act to continue on its course

for renewal.

[saracat]

18. Yup.

[seriousstan]

2. No, we must keep the emphasis on the drinking, as the greatest thread says

We have to prove that we cannot chew gum and walk. We have to prove that we are forever distracted by minutia.

[reality based]

15. While the drinking is an issue, the focus should be on the lousy judgment

both in the decision to pull the trigger and the PR decisions-- blaming the victim, calling Armstrong an eyewitness, delaying the disclosure, delaying the law enforcement investigation, choosing the hospital and the means of transport. The metaphor angle should also be pursued-- a trigger happy administration willing to blow holes in the Constitution. Finally, ridicule the pretentious SOB.

[seriousstan]

21. And that has been working well for you?

In case you didn't notice, the general public moves on. Fodder for a very finely focused computer forum does not make it a popular movement.

Case in point.....theworldcantwait. Well advertised and poorly attended.

[reality based]

28. Yes, it has. People aren't that dumb. This gives them something

concrete to hold onto when thinking about or discussing this administration with their friends. This will be joke fodder for awhile now that Whittington appears to be out of danger. You aren't going to fashion a revolution from such an incident, but it is one more straw for the camel. Patience, my friend. We aren't going to win with a single punch.

[seriousstan]

33. We also don't will by flailing wildly, well chosen and placed punches.

This is petty and dismissable. It will only be embraced and discussed by the already convinced. The general public will view this as drivel and tune us out.

[reality based]

34. You are wrong

[seriousstan]

38. WOW, I am convinced by your sterling rhetoric and grasp of logical debate.

You has spoken!! (mammy Yokum)

[SteppingRazor]

3. One quick clarifying point...

our ports are, of course, still US property. Administration of those ports was sold by an English company to a UAE company.

[saracat]

5. It is actually a sort of defense contract and was okay by

homelend Security and all the major Depts. The Wapo has the deytails. Bush could have stopped it and didn't arguing UAE was an ally!

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. Which makes the UAE company responsible for contracting for

port security.

Things that make you go "hmmm".

[saracat]

8. This is a really big deal. We are screwedif this is allowed.

Hillary was big on port security. Is she saying anything?

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. It's supposed to be in DHS purview.

And we know how efficient they are.

[ThoughtCriminal]

7. Damage controlled is still damage

He won't face criminal charges, but the administratoin and their apologists look more ridiculous than ever. Just another chink in the paper armor.

[saracat]

12. Please. The damage control worked. Look at the polls. No one wants to

investigate. Poor Cheney. We look stupid, not Cheney. It boomeranged!

[ThoughtCriminal]

27. Disagree 100%

This is a HUGE humilation for Cheney. People are LAUGHING at him. The polls continue to trend downward. The only people who look stupid are the pathetic pundits who keep trying to kind new spin to deal with it.

BTW - the boomerange is a clever weapon. You catch it and use it again. It wasn't invented as a way to hurt the thrower.

[saracat]

29. I hope you are right but the polls don't reflect that . Maybe later?

[ThoughtCriminal]

35. We'll know soon

The shooting may not have much impact on Bush's numbers. It will probably hurt Cheney a bit, but his numbers were already in the 20's I think. A bigger impact is that more people are willing to openly ridicile him - without mercy.

There isn't a national poll that has been taken since last weekend. But they are still stuck in the high 30's to low 40's - that is very bad. No bounce at all from the SOTU.

I suspect that it can't get much lower than the low 30's anyway. At that point you get to voters who will reject every issues except gay marraige as being important.

Cheer up!

[calimary]

56. I think your point is well-taken, ThoughtCriminal.

A clue as to whether the public really has moved on - watch the late night comedians. Hell, watch the any-time-of-day comedians. They used to say that if it made Johnny Carson's monologue, it was a BIG DEAL - HUGE in the water-cooler talk department. It's stupid little shit like this that somehow "captures the imagination" (I HATE that cliche) of the public.

Look - beggars can't be choosers. I'll take whatever I can get. And believe me, it IS yet another kink in the armor. Even if it's a small one, it's still there. The guy's already tremendously unpopular. Now, he's a joke. And the Oscars are still weeks away (BIGTIME monologue - with some speculation that George Clooney may win simply so he'll have a chance to make another speech!) It's good if he's a laughingstock. That takes him down further. That draws more gnats flying around the face. ANYTHING that is bothersome and pesky to somebody like him is good for us.

What I found most distressing in saracat's original post here was this passage:

I was also told by party officials this week that we have to understand that we aren't going to win some elections and we shouldn't even bother to try. I responded that it was defeatist and that the way to guarantee not winning is not to have a candidate, or to have one and tell them they can't win.

If it were me, I would stomp into that office and demand the resignation of EVERY idiot who said we shouldn't even bother to try winning something. Do you remember how abandoned and isolated Southern Democrats felt after 2004? I saw complaints registered here and elsewhere - that the Democratic Party didn't even bother with some states. No campaigning, no support, no staffing-up, no money, no NOTHING. They were thrown to the wolves. No wonder we lose some Southern states! They were written off before the game even began. Some of the folks in those same places are now on their knees thanking God that Howard Dean bothered to come down there and hold a town meeting or something. They raised tons of money, got tons of volunteers, standing-room-only crowds, people HUNGRY for change and hope, and he gave that hope to them, by the truckload! Those who declared that there are some campaigns that aren't even worth trying for should go join the GOP. And help THEM with that shit.

DO NOT LOSE FAITH! And don't forget - WE WERE MADE TO MULTI-TASK. I can certainly keep more than one campaign on track in my own efforts, can't you? Seems to me a WHOLE LOT of people even just here at DU are exquisitely capable of that.

As Class Warrior says - NGU. Never. Give. Up.

[Ecumenist]

40. Saracat....

Please, although I can't prove it just by my words, we don't look stupid. The vast dimwitted and slow are unable to find a way out of this... I'm related to alot of them. I know. Don't believe what you see and hear from the CONTROLLED, BOUGHT AND PAID FOR, media. I'm on the ground. Unfortunately, I know firsthand..

[ChipsAhoy]

46. Unfortunately, true.

:(

[Ecumenist]

37. Exactly, ThoughtCriminal...

I live in a relatively conservative area in northern California and the best way I can describe what's happening with this cheney mess is percolation. There are ALOT hunters here and the vast majority are what anyone would characterise as conservative. This is hitting them like a bolt of lightening and it's not apparent to most outside of these groups that this has REALLY damaged their already jaundiced view of cheney-bush. Look at it as a dysfunctional family which is aware that there are extremely deviant behaviours in the family BUT they put on a masque for anyone outside of the household. This is why Saracat and many others feel that nothing will come of this. Trust me, this is not going unnoticed. I have family members who are conservative fundie idiots and they actually voted for this mess some people think passes for a government, even though they complained about how they trumped up a war, lied, stole and committed treason. The worst thing of it all is that.....They're black. Now, for whatever reason, they can't get past this...go figure... Getting them to admit it was like pulling teeth from a chicken..:freak:

[badgerpup]

9. I dunno...

I'm gettin' pretty damn depressed about this seeming ability to get away with everything and anything.
They are accountable to nobody, and WE are left with an aftermath and legacy that it frightens and sickens me to think about.
If we are even left.
:nopity:

Yeah, I am pretty damn depressed just now.

[Generator]

10. Well ultimately it's not an important story anyway

And we all know it because drum roll please...it was considered a big story by CNN or pick your cable propaganda channel of choice.

It's a goddamn hunting accident. Whether he was drunk or lied about it-whatever-the guy isn't dying and isn't pressing charges-and it's pointless to pursue it. There is no there there. All it shows is what a rottten character our Vice President has. EVERYONE knows this. It's not a story.

A story might be the illegal spying on Americans since before 9/11 and since. Data mining!

Or that the vice president gave permission for an CIA agent to be outed and have her career ruined for (according to them) political payback over tellling the TRUTH. No danger from Iraq. Maybe that she was working on IRAN-nuclear stuff on Iran might be important.

Or a zillion other rotten things this guy and his friends have done.

The rich and the powerful rarely pay. And in case you haven't noticed, Cheney and the Bush cabal are not only rich and powerful they are in my humble opinion nothing more than the mafia.

It was a fun story for US-it shows how basically inhuman Cheney is. It made him have a bad week. But unfortunately the country is going to continue to have a bad year after year until somebody stops these criminals.

[Astrad]

11. The outrage about UAE port deal is knee jerk and anti-arab

Considering the pathetic job US authorities did preventing 9/11 and in fact the assistance they provided for the operation (presumably unintentionally)with regards to express visas and military training of some of the hijackers, Americans may be better off with the UAE administering port security.

[saracat]

16. Riiight. You go ahead and trust these people.

They fund and continue to fund the terrorists. Bush had the Al Queda( sp) liaison at the SOS! His hypocrisy about the "war on terror" knows no bounds. That is why we will NEVER find Osama, and why the bin Laden family were the only people flown out of this country on Sept.12. That isn't conspiracy theory or anti-Arab. It is fact.

[Astrad]

22. "These people?!"

"These people" are capitalists. They're no different than capitalists here. They do what is profitable. Please explain how aiding terrorist plots against the US will earn them more money than these long term multi-million dollar contracts to administer port security.

[saracat]

24. Yup. "these people' . I don't apologize for the term

They still bankroll the terrorists. We know that. And yet we are supposed to trust them? But hey, as Micheal Moore said, they actually own more of our real estate than we do so, what is the problem? Hmm. And Bushco makes it even easier to control us. And they really are NOT our allies.

[Astrad]

39. I don't suggest you apologize.

Only that you be specific. Are you talking about the government of the UAE, arabs, muslims, arab-muslims, fundamentalist muslim arabs, fundamentalist muslims (including non arabs), particular Sheiks, particular Imams, Wahabis, Shiites, Alawites, Sunnis, all arab nations, all muslim nations (including non arabs), wealthy arabs, poor arabs, wealthy non-arab citizens of predominantly arab countries, poor non-arab citizens of...well you get the picture...

[High Plains]

53. Who funds the terrorists?

The government of the UAE? Please explain.

DP WORLD (www.dpworld.com), the port company? Please explain.

[EVDebs]

14. Jon Stewart the other nite called him "The Penguin" LOL !

He may have won the battle, but historically speaking, he'll lose the war. Oh, I wasn't speaking about Iraq, but since you brought it up...it will be forever known as simply a 'quagmire', as Rummy put it.

[MrBenchley]

17. Not so fast....

[Edward Copeland]

20. Personally, I think they lucked into a distraction

They fumbled the beginning and then decided they could use it to keep real news off the air. Notice how little press the judge ordering the release of the NSA documents has gotten? Or the scuttling of the congressional probes? Or Plame's status as covert AND working on Iran? Or the usual Iraq mess, including al-Sadr's rise? Hell, you almost haven't heard Bush's name this week.

On top of that, Republicans keep dropping trial balloons (a story and a column each in the past two days of the Wall Street Journal) suggesting that it's time for Cheney to go, so they can install their own handpicked successor for 08 in the veep's chair.

[AndyTiedye]

23. It Was Never About Cheney Getting Arrested for the Shooting

Although nobody, even on Fauxnews, will ever get away with calling Cheney a "straight shooter" again.
What kind of hunter manages to accidentally shoot another member of his party who is standing BEHIND them?
What kind of hunter mixes himself a good stiff drink after accidentally shooting another hunter? (A. One who is already drunk).

The CANNED HUNT thing has legs too.

What kind of hunter hunts from a CAR?
What kind of hunter shoots farm-raised quail on, or just off the ground?
What kind of hunter shoots tied-up game?

Oh yeah, and what kind of husband goes off on an overnight on Valentines Day weekend with a woman who is not his wife?

Even some freepers should find all this a bit hard to stomach.

[saracat]

25. But none of that is even being mentioned in the MSM.

And most freepers don't even admit those details.

[ThoughtCriminal]

30. MSM doesn't matter as much as the water cooler talk

Unless EVERYONE at the cooler is a freeper.

[Ecumenist]

43. You'd be surprised what "fweepers" are talking about...

around the white lightning jug. You just might be surprised... The average Lil' Abner and Daisy Mae are pretty pissed at the lapse in huntin' etiquette and he pulled, as it was eloquently put to me," he pulled a Kennedy and couldn't even get his lies straight". So don't buy the polls and media hype or lack thereof.:shrug: :hi:

[marions ghost]

57. ha --there it is

"he pulled a Kennedy" ... no worse insult coming from a Rightwinger. But there is a hard truth in the comparison, and it doesn't favor Cheney.

I agree-- grassroots conservative voters are negatively impressed by this episode, and they can smell a sloppy cover-up. The smart ones are seeing that their Gods have clay feet.

[reality based]

32. People have noticed. They don't have to be hit over the head.

My mother, whose only source of information is cable TV and a few people who take her to church and look in on her from time to time, had already picked up on some of these things when I first talked to her about this episode.

[Ecumenist]

45. Amen, Andy...AMEN. eom

[sandnsea]

26. We live in a diverse country

There really are alot of people who really do believe in complete free trade, the global economy, Christian capitalism, and killing anybody who gets in the way. You'll find alot of them at your local Chamber of Commerce. They aren't the traditional Democratic constituency, and they never will be. I kind of like when they put their fish or Bible quote out in front, warns me to hold on to my wallet and run like hell!! Just like the bunch in the White House, if somebody has to tell you they're a Christian, it's probably because you'd never guess it from their behavior, particularly when they're robbing you blind.

These people have been in the highest offices in the country forever. It's always been a battle between the monied elite and the monied self-governance types. We grew up in a flash of time when the voice of the people affected real change. We felt our power. We thought it was America. We didn't know they would come to take it away again. So now we know.

It didn't start with us, it won't end with us. We just pick up and do what we can, and hope that good eventually wins out. If not in our lifetimes, then we can at least hope we laid some groundwork for the future. Or kept them from washing over us altogether.

[saracat]

31. What a beautiful post sandnsea. Thank you.

[dubyamd]

36. discrepancies

Might be but a few discrepancies to look at.

The hospital said there where between 6 to 200 pellets that is a big range left unexplained with the pattern a distance could be confirmed.

In the report it says he was hit in the right side but the diagram shows wounds on the left side.


Armstrong was the Best witness according to Cheney but had to be at least 70 yards away since Cheney stated we walked about 100 yards from the vehicles and Whittington was shot at 30 yards. Whittington had returned to vehicles before going to the hunting line. So he had to be in the direct path between the vehicles and the shooters. At 70 yards she heard or didn't hear Whittington announce his return to the line but apparently didn't see him fall since her first thought was something was wrong with Cheney even though W he was walking from the vehicles to the line.

Cheney states W was in a gully or he would have been hit lower than chest and head. So what was Cheney shooting at 2 feet off the ground most Quail pop up. Quail do do odd things though.

If Whittington was in a gully when shot how did Cheney see him on the ground right away which he stated. His x-ray vision must have let him look through the ground.

Then there is the counterclockwise thing. If Cheney had been walking North to South as stated and swung right to face west he would have to be going clockwise.

more of a curiosity point how far away do you start yelling at the hunter I'm coming. He was 30 yds away do you start yelling at 40,50, or should he have yelled at them from 100yds. at the time he left the vehicles.

[VaYallaDawg]

41. Welcome to DU!

[dubyamd]

47. who is Captain Kirk

Thanx

one more. Captain Kirk was at the gate but never let in to investigate. Which of you private property owners could stop the police from coming on to your property if a shooting was reported?



Check out the location with Google earth
According to the report N26' 56.352" W97' 50.420"

[VaYallaDawg]

49. I don't know how it works in TX, but you'd never be able to

prevent a police investigation in VA just because a shooting occurred on private property!!

[marions ghost]

58. this hasnt been talked about much, subtle point but

'Then there is the counterclockwise thing. If Cheney had been walking North to South as stated and swung right to face west he would have to be going clockwise."

--This hit me from the first. Although I don't hunt, I do stalk animals with cameras and binoculars. So I am familiar with what it's like to be oriented facing south and then swinging right to face west, and so how then would you be going counterclockwise?

[DrGonzoLives]

44. Cheney is officially dead

He died in 1983. Or, at least, that's when his soul left his body.

[Rocknrule]

50. Well what did you expect?

It's not like he's a Democrat, or got a blowjob or something serious like that

[zulchzulu]

51. Whittington's slipup today could restir the fire...

When Whittington left the hospital today, he mentioned how bad he felt about the incident...last Friday...the incident happened on Saturday...Or did it?

The story may go off the radar for the time being, but Cheney will historically be remembered as someone who was VP who shot someone in the face...and then tried to cover it up. It will be a puzzle piece soon revealed as the whole picture of this man's corruption and lies.

[Doctor_J]

52. Surprise, surprise

:eyes:

[Paladin]

54. I Honestly Don't Think He Got Away With It

The incident highlighted his mania for secrecy, his God-awful health condition, his ability to push around the Boy President at will, his inability to publicly apologize for a grotesque lapse in behavior, his obvious feeling that he is above the law, and his preference for only appearing before pre-selected, fawning audiences.

Sure, the 30% Rabid Republican Base will still support him; hell, they'd be supporting him if he'd emptied that shotgun into a loaded school bus. The rest of the country thinks he's an asshole. He's permanently damaged goods...

[LittleClarkie]

55. My county chairman has the opposite attitude here

He is pushing for as many people to run as possible, even if the area is heavily Republican. The idea is that even if we have little chance of winning, we are still getting the Dem message out through the publicity a campaign brings, and we are making the Republicans spend some money on their campaigns. I phonebanked for a candidate just a couple of months ago who said that he'd gotten into the race because he didn't like "one-party rule."

I live in Sensenbrenner's district. We may not win, but we're not going to let the Republicans get their way for free anymore.