February 13, 2006 by lonbud
Mama Tried?
Vice President Dick Cheney shot a man in Texas over the weekend, giving fresh and all-too-real meaning to the term loose cannon, when he sprayed a quail hunting companion with bird shot in a hunting accident on Saturday afternoon.
Seventy-eight-year-old Texas attorney Harry Wittington was in stable condition Monday afternoon after suffering wounds to his face, neck, and chest from a shotgun fired by Mr. Cheney during a hunt on private property.
Mr. Whittington was the beneficiary of the Vice President’s own frail health, as the medical team that travels with Mr. Cheney responded immediately to treat Mr. Wittington until emergency crews could reach the scene. After being rushed to a hospital in Corpus Christi, the long-time Republican stalwart was flown by helicopter to a larger facility nearby, where he was admitted to the intensive care unit.
Aspects of this unfolding story strike tones of resonance with the Bush administration’s broader way of being.
To begin, White House officials said nothing about the incident until Sunday, and were only forthcoming at that time on the heels of a report in a local paper on Sunday morning, despite the President’s having been briefed in the matter on Saturday.
In an odd twist, the President didn’t learn whether Mr. Cheney had been the victim, or the shooter, or a bystander, until overnight after first being told of the mishap on Saturday evening.
Or so White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan tried to spin the story today.
Can one imagine what it must have been like for the President of the United States to go to sleep on Saturday night, knowing his Vice President had been involved in a hunting accident that day but wondering what role he’d played in the unfortunate event?
One might reasonably surmise this president found little to question or reason to worry himself on Saturday.
One wonders why, with eyewwitnesses, a gaggle of secret service agents, and medical personnel on hand — not to mention the wonders of 21st Century communication technology — the President couldn’t have been told the entire story from the outset, and if he had been, why the White House had to play footsie with the media throughout Sunday and most of Monday before officially acknowledging the course of events.
In perhaps the most fitting codicil to the story, the Vice President and his hunting party were brandishing firearms in violation of the law on Saturday, hunting without permits — for which they are apparently to be fined by Texas wildlife officials.
Hoping, no doubt, to head off a broader inquiry, Mr. Cheney sent in his $7 check for the hunting fee this afternoon.
lonbud - February 24, 2006 @ 8:21 pm
You are a funny man, Michael Herdegen. I thank you once again for enlivening the conversation on this blog.
Much of what you maintain in the previous comment is inarguably true, yet brings us back around to what I believe is the crux of the alternate paradigms through which you and I view events: You seem to believe things are just fine in America, given what they could be when compared with the rest of the world and with other eras of our own history.
I believe things ought to be far better than they are, given what we know of history and what we are capable of producing in the here and now.
You say Asians, Blacks, Catholics, Jews, Latinos, and others are represented in the highest ranks of academia, business, government, and the military. Represented, perhaps, but the reality is that each of those strata of our society continue to be overwhelmingly dominated by white males. And the dirty secret is that the majority of the minority representatives you’ll find at those highest echelons of power in this society got where they are by adopting the ways of the White Male.
And while I might agree that a hypothetical modestly capable person has a far better shot at becoming rich in America today than in perhaps any other country at any other time in history, the reality is that actual individual women, blacks, latinos and others have to be far more than modestly capable in order to overcome cultural and institutional barriers to success that exist especially to keep them from achieving the American Dream.
I will also note a point of debate that becoming rich ought to be our raison d’etre.
Tam O’Tellico - February 24, 2006 @ 8:41 pm
While statistics point, so does opinion, particularly the informed opinion of a recognized authority:
The American Political Science Association concluded that progress toward realizing American ideals of democracy “may have stalled, and even, in some areas, reversed.” Privileged Americans “roar with a clarity and consistency that public officials readily hear and routinely follow” while citizens “with lower or moderate incomes are speaking with a whisper.”
For the rest of the story from a true Texan, rather than a fake Texan like DubaiU, go here:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/02/24/restoring_the_public_trust.php
Michael Herdegen - February 25, 2006 @ 7:04 am
lonbud:
You seem to believe things are just fine in America, given what they could be when compared with the rest of the world and with other eras of our own history.
This is true, but also, I believe that things are perhaps 75% as good as they could realistically possibly be, given human nature.
While either of us could imagine different Utopian societies, the plain fact is that there aren’t enough people like either of us to enact the necessary changes, and the vast majority of hoi polloi just don’t much care, as long as things are going well for them personally.
The social status quo is changing, and for the better – just slowly.
For instance, while I think that prejudice is a smaller problem than you do, it’s also clear that once the Boomers retire, and GenX occupies most positions of power, there will be less institutional prejudice.
The Boomers themselves are a racist generation, but they wished that they weren’t, and succeeded in raising less racist generations.
[E]ach of those strata of our society continue to be overwhelmingly dominated by white males.
Not surprising, considering that whites make up 70% of the American population, and that women choose different career paths than do men.
And the dirty secret is that the majority of the minority representatives you’ll find at those highest echelons of power in this society got where they are by adopting the ways of the White Male.
Which is just another way of saying that they copied what works.
In what different way would you like to see Black and Latin leaders behave ?
What ethnic essence are they missing ?
I will also note a point of debate that becoming rich ought to be our raison d’etre.
Terrestrial wealth is the lesser part of a life well-lived, but it’s a near-universal ambition. If one has to choose between riches and enlightenment, then of course one must choose enlightenment, but it’s quite possible to have both.
Paul Newman, Bono, and Bill Gates illustrate that.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield too.
Tam O’Tellico - February 26, 2006 @ 3:39 pm
So many subjects — so little time.
Elitism:
Michael, I’ll have no more of you accusing me of elitism unless you own up to your own dismissal of the “hoi polloi”. But hey, ain’t you and I grand? Now if we just had fame and fortune, we could be right up there with Paul Newman, Bono, Bill Gates, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield — though I’m not exactly what Bill is doing in such illustrious and liberal company.
Racism:
Lon, what can you possibly be thinking by using the Uncle Tom argument? How is it that black leaders are ‘sposed to act, like Huey Newton or like Arthur Ashe? Like Al Sharpton or like Baraq Obama? Like 50 cent or John Conyers? Actually. I’ll take any of these over Clarence Thomas, but I’m afraid you’ve fallen into the abyss on this one.
Michael is correct that this problem will fade away in time. As I told a local redneck, dinosaurs like him and me will soon be gone – meantime, kids are voting with their organs. We will soon be a world of mulattoes — The world will no longer be black and white when everyone it is brown.
But bigots need not fear — we will always have religion to divide us. And in the future, I suspect there will still be other “class” distinctions, money being the most obvious.
Economism:
As for the state of our economic affairs, I would once again like to coin a term: Economism, derivative of onanism (look it up or refer to my reference below to a certain infamous lobbyist), wretchedly excessive pursuit of unenlightened self-gratification, selfishness.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — the powers that be want to return us to the pre-Roosevelt jungle. And greedy corporate capitalists are only to eager to grease the wheels of that slide into Purgatory. I watched the recent appearance of the four blind mice from Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and Cisco before Congress. They had their hides tanned for cooperating with China in its efforts to propagandize the Internet, and in the case of Cisco and Yahoo at least, of assisting Chinese Thought Police in capturing dissidents who dared to protest such oppression.
Among the many fallacious arguments these apologists offered was that their companies were only doing what Congress had legislatively encouraged them to do — get involved with word trade. That vile canard was more than even a Bush apologist like Republican Dana Rohrbacher could stand. To parphrase, he said, “Right, and you were the guys lobbying us and passing out millions to see that legislation got passed. Please don’t come up here and insult us with that lame-assed excuse.”
Once the philosophy of Darwinian individuality was wedded to the idiotic notion of the “conscienceless” corporation, the commonweal was doomed. We are now witnessing the triumphal wedding march of that unholy union with this administration.
The ringbearer is one Jackoff Abraham, who excuses bribery, thuggery and possibly even murder as being essential to his “religious” cause. He is joined by a gaggle of eager beaver bribees led by Tom the Exterminator DeLay. With a Bible in one hand and a flag in the other, these greedy bastard offspring of this marriage made in Hell proudly proclaim from the Capitol steps that it’s every man for himself. They declare open season on grouse, Whittington’s and the poor.
Quote all the statistics you wish, but ask the average man on the street, and you will get a different answer about the condition and direction of the economy — and the American Dream.
Now you may say the streets are full of fools, and given the supposed resuts of our last Presidential election, I may be inclined to agree with you. But if that is so, then what pray tell is the hope for the rosy future painted by Michael and this administration?
I suspect the future may indeed be rosy for DubaiU and Deadly Dick — it may even be for Michael. But for those of us without the rose-colored glasses or a fortune amassed from milking a corporate or government cow to bankruptcy, the rising tide that lifts all boats has disappeared into the swamps of the Mississippi Delta, taking New Orleans with it.
And maybe it won’t be just New Orleans that disappears if DubaiU has his way on Port-o-Gate. Michael claims to be uninformed on this issue, and that he shares with President Bush, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and even Treasury Secretary John Snow, who oversees the government committee that approved the deal. They all say they did not know about the purchase until after it was finalized. The work was done mostly by assistant secretaries. Well, that makes me feel a lot safer, how about it, Michael?
Which brings me back to my elitism. I’m tempted to ask again how 58 million people could be so stupid — but maybe they weren’t. Maybe we have another problem that overshadows all the rest.
Michael assures us that DubiaU won fair and square in 2004 and the recount only made that victory more solid. I would suggest he ought to look a little more closely at the issue of voting irregularities, particularly since he’s so fond of statitistics. Well, here’s an interesting statistic:
“An analysis of the U.S. Electronic Incident Reporting System (EIRS) database (for the 2004 presidential election) shows that incidents of “electronic vote switching” from Kerry to Bush outnumber incidents going in the other directions by a ratio of greater than 12:1.”
Want another interesting statistic? The statistical probability of that happening accidentally: 1 in 1,783,106,652,071,710,000. Now that’s a number that has to impress even Michael.
The rest of the story:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=371211
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/19421.html
Michael Herdegen - February 27, 2006 @ 5:14 am
Michael, I’ll have no more of you accusing me of elitism unless you own up to your own dismissal of the “hoi polloi”.
That’s just it, I don’t dismiss them.
I recognize them for what they are: Only modestly intelligent, fairly ignorant – by choice, prone to foolish financial decisions at the margins, unsophisticated.
However, they are “the salt of the Earth” and generally manage, via “the wisdom of crowds”, to choose or promote adequate representatives, leaders, or policies.
They ain’t grand, but they get by.
Do I wish that most people would do MORE than get by, that they would actually ANALYZE and ACT on the mostly extremely-solvable medium- and long-term problems facing American society, and indeed all humans ?
You bet I do.
However, what actually happens is good enough, and that’s also my answer to then what pray tell is the hope for the rosy future painted by Michael and this administration?
We’ve always gotten by in the past, and I expect that we’ll do so in the future. If one wants to make the argument that the times or people are somehow different now, and that we can no longer count on muddling through, it would require some concrete evidence of negative trends or paradigms. An unsupported assertion counts for nothing.
The default assumption has to be that we WILL get by in the future, simply because we’re on a so-far-unbroken winning streak.
I’m not exactly [sure] what Bill is doing in such illustrious and liberal company.
Giving away hundreds of millions of dollars to make the future better for millions of the needy – which is more than Bono and Ben & Jerry have done, despite those three’s worthwhile and extremely laudable contributions to the benefit of humanity.
I watched the recent appearance of the four blind mice from Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and Cisco before Congress.
The fact is that half a loaf is better than none.
While we wish that the ChiComs weren’t oppressive and censorious, it’s also true that they are only acting to block primary sources of what they see as dangerous ideas or information.
But what they cannot effectively reckon with is that people with access to secondary and tertiary sources of information will be able to piece together what is missing.
Gorbachev tried a “limited” opening of the USSR’s totalitarian system, and was swept away by the resultant social upheaval within five years.
The ChiComs may hold on longer, but the end result will be much the same. They need to open their system somewhat to even ATTEMPT to compete with today’s advanced nations, but once people have access to 80% of the total amount of information, it’s impossible to keep the other 20% under wraps for long.
Therefore, censored Web search is better than NO Web search.
I would suggest [that Michael] ought to look a little more closely at the issue of voting irregularities, particularly since he’s so fond of statitistics.
I don’t doubt that there were irregularities and fraud – that happens in EVERY Presidential election.
What I argue is that it wasn’t a deciding factor.
As proof of that I point to John Kerry and the Dem leadership.
John Kerry has wanted to be President since he was in high school.
If there were ANY chance that he could prove that the ’04 results were fraudulent, don’t you think that he would act on that ?
The Dems are out of power in EVERY branch of government.
If ’04 was stolen, wouldn’t they be trumpeting that to the high heavens ?
The conspiracy theorists who like to pretend that the ’04 results were wrong are implicitly saying either that John Kerry and the Democratic Party are acting in collusion with the GOP, or else that they are more ambitious than a man who started filming his own campaign commercials while serving in Vietnam, and wiser than the ENTIRE NATIONAL LEADERSHIP of the Dems.
I reject both arguments.
Tam O’Tellico - February 27, 2006 @ 10:07 am
C’mon, Michael, a numbers guy like you can’t just ignore numbers like these:
“An analysis of the U.S. Electronic Incident Reporting System (EIRS) database (for the 2004 presidential election) shows that incidents of “electronic vote switching” from Kerry to Bush outnumber incidents going in the other directions by a ratio of greater than 12:1.”
The statistical probability of that happening accidentally: 1 in 1,783,106,652,071,710,000.
Wanna offer an educated guess?
Tam O’Tellico - February 27, 2006 @ 10:35 am
Michael, you seem to be reverting to the same fallacious argument offered by so many around me who closed their eyes and held their nose long enough to bend over and take it in the rear for “Four More Years”.
That argument is wholly based on an utterly unprovable assumption: At least he was better than the other guy. Just how is it that you and the “Incognizanti” know for sure what Kerry would have done as President? You don’t.
How dare I make such a bold assertion? Because your insight has already been discredited by having made the same disastrous mistake twice.
After foru years, there was monumentally obvious evidence that Bush was not up to the task. Yet 58 million people supposedly ignored the ample evidence that Bush was unfit and assumed the alternative was worse. We all know what happens when you assume don’t we?
One of those who publicly admitted to this folly is Bruce Bartlett, a Reaganite who defoliates Bush in his new book Imposter. Bartlett joins Paul O’Neill, Pat Buchanan, George Will and a lengthening cast of disenchanted characters who seem barely able to stand the stench emanating from the White OutHouse.
Yet in spite of such discomfort, in spite of hard evidence, in spite of his own admissions, hell – in spite of intimating that DubaiU is the village idiot, Bartlett has the audacity to claim that he would vote for him again given the same choice.
Well, that’s one thing Bartlett shares with DubaiU — the inability to admit error.
I suspect that truth be told, most of the others — save O’Neill would take strike three. No one should disparage Yellow-Dog Democrats as long as we are beset with so many Blind-Batty Republicans.
If the intellectual elite of the Conservative wing suffer from hysterical blindness, how can it possibly be expected that the hoi polloi of the Rabid Wright will ever see the light?
Michael Herdegen - February 27, 2006 @ 5:22 pm
C’mon, Michael, a numbers guy like you can’t just ignore numbers like these…
I’ve already said that I accept that fraud occurred, but that it wasn’t deciding.
What objection do you have to that ?
Also, I’m not sure that I get the point of your last post. You seem to be saying that you don’t like Bush, and that I’m an idiot for voting for him twice.
But none of that’s new. Did you have some larger point that I’m missing ?
Tam O’Tellico - February 27, 2006 @ 9:25 pm
My point about the voting discrepancies is this: First, we can’t possibly know if the fraud was deciding unless we know the extent of the fraud; that is particularly true in the battleground states of Ohio and Florida. Second, I think we all need to demand a bi-partisan examintion of both the software and the hardware involved with voting machines before it is too late to insure that we don’t devolve into a Stalinesque parody of democracy.
The only other object of my previous post was to point out the seeming paradox between Bartlett’s personal intransigence and the highly critical nature of his book. I don’t suppose there is anything new in my pointing out how illogical it is to choose Bush’s proven incompetence over Kerry’s possible incompetence.
Tam O’Tellico - February 28, 2006 @ 7:17 am
Hang in their Michael, but be warned, it’s getting very lonely out there in Bush country:
SurveyUSA (surveyusa.com) states that a majority of voters in only five states (Idaho, Alabama, Wyoming, Nebraska and Oklahoma) now approve of the job President Bush is doing, down from six states in January.
Kinda makes you wonder if the EPA shouldn’t check the water quality in those five states. Wanna take a wild guess which state left the fold since the last survey?
That’s right, Cowboys, Texas.
Tam O’Tellico - February 28, 2006 @ 7:27 am
Lon, it occurred to me that with all the to-do over Intelligent Design vs Evolution, you might consider starting another blog:
I Just Have To Pray: Science is not an Option
Tam O’Tellico - February 28, 2006 @ 7:37 am
And for all the real hunters here:
On a hunting trip In December 2003, Cheney and his hunting party drew fire (pun likely intended) for bagging hundreds of pen-raised pheasants at a private game club in southwestern Pennsylvania. According to press reports, Cheney brought down the most — more than 70 — in a controlled shoot in which the birds were released from cages and then fired upon by Cheney and his crew.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) was along for the hunt and later said, with apparent regret, it seemed more like a slaughter at a food processing plant, or in his words “like Tyson’s and Pilgrim’s Pride would do it.”