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.
Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Senator Linc Chafee’s respectable lead over Mayor Laffey of Cranston doesn’t say much, either. This race will depend on how many independents Chafee can attract. A low Republican turnout could bode well for Laffey, although we don’t expect him to attract many more supporters than he already has. He’s just too nasty.
As for the gubernatorial race, the slim double-digit lead of “The Don,” over Charlie Fogarty, still ain’t much at this time, considering the governor’s supposed popularity. His budget may be attractive to the hard-core right-wingers who bloviate on talk radio, but we suspect that the average Joe is not quite thrilled, and this may work against the incumbent. So far, P&J see no real trends yet. We say: wait until June.
Congrats to Laffey
We know. You thought you’d never see anything like this headline in this space, but after many years of sub-standard snow plowing in the City of Cranston, Laffey got it right this past weekend. The vast majority of the city’s streets were actually properly plowed. This could be because it’s 2006, the mayor is running for the US Senate, and it behooves him to shore up his hometown base. We’re just happy to see the snow plowed this time. Kudos, therefore, to Mayor Laffey.
Photo funnies
The folks who select the photos for the BeloJo’s have done it again. They made a fine choice for the image accompanying Easy Ed Achorn’s regular Tuesday broadside against the Democrat-controlled state legislature. The Urinal file shot portrayed House Speaker William Murphy in the most arrogant pose imaginable. We expect to see this shot used many more times on the Urinal’s editorial page. Congrats to the Other Paper photographer who captured this image. You’ve got a real winner here.
