February 15, 2006--Anton Scalia--Duck!

I can't control myself--I need to write something about Dick Chaney shooting one of his hunting pals. I'm still out of the country and didn't see what Maureen Dowd wrote. I assume someone woke her up at 3:00 a.m. to tell her the news and she banged out her column in about seven minutes. I can only imagine what John Stewart and Jay Leno must be saying. But I can't resist--this is my absolutely favorite story in at least 10 years (see NY Times account linked below). I need to blog!

What is striking to me is not that this “incident” symbolizes that this gang can’t shoot straight; nor that the Chaney people took many hours before releasing the story, presumably to get the right spin in place and/or to keep it off the Sunday talk shows; nor that Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, attempting to out-Leno Leno wore an orange tie to his briefing with reporters, saying it’s the color hunters wear so as to not get shot by their buddies and he doesn’t was to get shot by the VP. No not that.

And not that Vice President Chaney called his 78 year-old pal in the hospital to joke with him and to offer to do all he could to help; nor the fact that when they discovered one of the shot gun pellets had lodged in his heart and he thus needed to be taken to the ICU because it caused a heart attack; nor that later that day Chaney released a statement saying that “his thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Whittington,” the same words he offered when Ariel Sharon had a stroke. I don’t know about Maureen and Jay and John, but none of this struck me as so noteworthy or funny.

Here’s what I’ve been wondering about—

So they were hunting on former ambassador Anne Armstrong’s spread, Chaney may or may not have had a proper hunting license, they were escorted and surrounded by a small army of Secret Service Agents (all in orange I assume), maybe they even had a few drinks. I can live with this. Boys will be, well, boys.

But what were they hunting for? Was it one of those Texas Big Game places where they have the Big Seven in cages, set the “hunters” up in front of them, then open the doors on the cages, and as the animals race out they point blank blast away at them?

No, they were hunting quail. Do you know what quail are? Bob Whites? They are quiet small birds, about eight inches in length, stubby in shape (sort of like the VP), and weigh about six ounces. And they can barely fly, being much more comfortable scampering along the ground in family groups of about a dozen birds.

So picture this—Chaney and his entourage fly all the way to Texas at taxpayer expense on his own government plane, Air Force Two, he schleps out to Anne Armstrong’s, gets into his gear (pictures please), and with Mr. Whittington and a few other fat cats (this time not including another hunting companion, Justice Anton Scalia) drags himself out into the “bush.” I assume either a Beater or Secret Service Agent comes upon some quail and scares them into flight. Chaney does whatever is necessary to get his twin-gauge shotgun into locked and firing position and pulls the trigger(s). The quail make their escape and Mr. W is loaded off to the hospital. Where the doctors report he has anywhere from five to 200 pellets in various parts of his body, now including his heart.

Let me get this straight—Chaney was using shotgun shells that contained at least 200 pellets to kill a six ounce quail?

Sounds like more Shock and Awe to me.