Deadeye Dick

Boy, when Dick Cheney said that he favored a robust, powerful executive branch of government, I didn't realize quite what he had in mind. In addition to claiming for himself the right to leak classified information and the right to randomly torture brown people, he's now granted himself a License to Kill.

Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.

Harry Whittington, a millionaire attorney from Austin, was in stable condition in the intensive care unit of a Corpus Christi hospital Sunday.

Now, I'm not the Attorney General or anything, but it is still illegal for the Vice-President to actually shoot a man, right? Or did Congress actually grant him that authority when they approved his little Iraq Adventure.

Okay, I'm just kidding...kind of. For Cheney-related hilarity, you really should check out Firedoglake, which has a hilarious Photoshop on the subject as well as the best "Cheney shoots a guy" headline imaginable. (It's "Cheney's Got a Gun.") Jane also helpfully points out that Cheney's not a real sportsman...He shoots confined animals that are raised specifically for the purpose of being shot at by fat old rich guys.

Monday's hunting trip to Pennsylvania by Vice President Dick Cheney in which he reportedly shot more than 70 stocked pheasants and an unknown number of mallard ducks at an exclusive private club places a spotlight on an increasingly popular and deplorable form of hunting, in which birds are pen-reared and released to be shot in large numbers by patrons. The ethics of these hunts are called into question by rank-and-file sportsmen, who hunt animals in their native habitat and do not shoot confined or pen-raised animals that cannot escape.

Classy.

So, I think what has happened is clear. Bored of shooting large numbers of defenseless animals enclosed in tiny spaces, yet in desperate need of satisfying his unquenchable bloodlust, Dick Cheney has turned to hunting the ultimate game...Man.

But, seeing as he's old and frail, he will be hunting, exclusively, 78 year old millionaires. One day, this may even become an annual White House tradition...

[Also, check out Bob Geiger's "Top Ten Dick Cheney Excuses for Shooting a Guy" and Tbogg reminds us that, unlike Dick Cheney who only wounded his hunting partner, Laura Bush has actually had the exquisite pleasure of killing someone.]

UPDATE: Also, Josh Marshall points us to a Washington Post article where we learn the following:

"The vice president was concerned," said Mary Matalin, a Cheney adviser who spoke with him yesterday morning. "He felt badly, obviously. On the other hand, he was not careless or incautious or violate any of the [rules]. He didn't do anything he wasn't supposed to do."

Except...you know...shooting a guy.