That Dick “Sure Shot” Cheney lacked a necessary stamp for shooting quail when he accidentally plugged one of his hunting buddies sounds about right. After all, the entire Bush-Cheney administration has long operated on the presumption that it doesn’t need no stinkin’ badges, licenses, nor evidence to do most anything that it wants to.
We have already heard countless jokes about this incident, including the suspicions that Dick had shot a former veep, Dan Quayle, or that the next person he’ll go hunting with is Scooter Libby, who appears to have rolled his boss in the Valerie Plame leak case. (Unfortunately, for the quarry in this case, the shooting has spurred a “minor” heart attack.)
P&J want to know why the police didn’t question Cheney for more than 14 hours after the incident. If one were cynical, one could imagine that he needed time to sober up, but you certainly won’t read that here. Other than the lack of a fatality, though, the episode seems slightly similar to the incident in which someone conveniently disappeared, until hours later, when the local gendarmes finally interrogated him, from the scene of a tragic accident on a Massachusetts island. Just asking.
Yes, but which place smells worse?
A tip of the beret and sombrero to our irreverent and humorous friends at WorkingRI for the (see above) flyer being distributed in the usual wiseass circles. We always thought they just put the documents in concrete blocks and dumped them off the Jamestown Bridge at night. Sorry, sir, we have no record of the benefits due to you.
Off to the races
Is anyone greatly surprised by the results of last week’s Taubman Center for Public Policy poll, showing Matt Brown and Sheldon Whitehouse neck and neck in their Democratic primary battle for the US Senate? In fact, the poll showed that Brown had a slight lead.
It’s early, and Brown has been all over television with his commercials. This makes perfect sense in a race that those in the chattering classes have certainly been chattering about (but which few other Vo Dilanduhs, we suggest, have yet to focus on). For all intents and purposes, Whitehouse hasn’t yet really swung into campaign mode.
The bigger questions remain to be answered, probably in the next three or four months. Will Brown’s strategy — spending a lot of money to raise his profile — succeed in attracting more money? He’ll desperately need it to remain competitive. Are the high-profile party endorsements received by Whitehouse a plus or a minus for him? In the past, endorsements by major party figures have not proven very valuable, and these may actually turn off part of the electorate.
This snapshot of the race is just that — a snapshot at this point in time. And it’s too early to tell if this means a whole lot. In speaking to Chuckie Bakst, polling poobah Darrell West said as much, opining that he still thinks Whitehouse will win. While many may be surprised at Brown’s current strength, there is still a huge undecided and independent voter factor, and P&J are not surprised by any of this.
