Behind the Silence

Cheney Reveals His Power -- and Arrogance

By Eugene Robinson
Friday, February 17, 2006; A19

With all that's going on in the world -- appalling new photos from Abu Ghraib, a looming nuclear showdown with Iran, Hurricane Katrina victims being evicted from New Orleans hotels while 11,000 mobile homes sit unused in Arkansas -- isn't it time to move on from the tragicomic Cheney shooting incident?

Not just yet.

Not until we deconstruct his strange interview with Brit Hume on Fox News the other night. Fox, by the way, did as much as any media outlet to keep the Cheney story alive, first by running story after story accusing other media outlets of keeping the story alive and then by filling a whole news cycle with snippets from Hume's exclusive interview. But when Fox finally showed the whole encounter, it was compelling television.

What did we learn from the vice president's version of the shooting? Plenty.

We learned, as Cheney acknowledged, that it wasn't 78-year-old attorney Harry Whittington's fault that Cheney blasted him in the face, neck and chest with a 28-gauge shotgun. "You can't blame anybody else," the vice president said. "I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend. And I say that is something I'll never forget."

That was the substance of the interview -- Cheney confirmed something we already knew. It was the atmospherics that proved revelatory and disturbing.

Cheney is often described as the most powerful vice president in the nation's history -- he mentioned to Hume that he has the personal authority to declassify secret information, for example -- and it seems clear from his recounting of the shooting's aftermath that his authority extends far beyond White House control. He shot Whittington on Saturday afternoon and didn't bother to speak to a soul in the White House until Sunday morning. Even Karl Rove, the president's political wizard, had to get his information elsewhere -- from Katharine Armstrong, whose family owns the 50,000-acre ranch where Cheney was spending the weekend.

Cheney revealed that he didn't talk to President Bush about the shooting until Monday. Is it just me, or is that weird?

Read On

 

Yep, it is very weird.

 

It seems to me that Cheney is as "in-your-face" with Junior and Frogman Rove as he is with everyone else (except Lynne.)

 

The MSM commentators like to say that Cheney can do as he pleases because he does not plan to run for president. So, he can tell us all to go "Cheney" ourselves, including the president.

 

I have another theory. Cheney knows more about where the bodies are buried than Junior does, but those bodies and public knowledge of where they are buried would destroy the Bushites and the GOP.

 

Meanwhile, Voldemort just keeps right on slitherin'......