Duck and Cover (your ass)

Let's all hope that Harry Whittington recovers quickly, but the extent conservatives are going to cover Dick Cheney's ass with is astounding.

John Dickerson, on Slate, says he received emails from Cheney supporters "arguing that it was no big deal because Whittington might already have had a heart condition."

Conservative "blogger" Michelle Malkin said "The Dems will exploit this accident to smear Cheney as incapable of being trusted, weak of mind, etc. The resignation rumors will fly again. And the biography of a man who has served this country so well and so honorably for so many years will be overshadowed by a single, ill-fated hunting mishap." The overhyped Ms. Malkin takes great pains to say Whittington is "doing fine." As an aside, Ms. Malkin obviously has no sense of humor as she whines about the Washington Post's Dana Milbank appearing on MSN's Countdown with Keith Olberman wearing bright orange hunting hat and safety vest.

Someone named "Dan" who is a "Gay Patriot" says "it is only a minor misdeed."

Want to see the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department report? The Smoking Gun has it.

What the Cheney apologists forget is that it is the shooter who is responsible for knowing what is around them. It is the person who pulls the trigger to know whether it is safe to fire the weapon. Even the people who work with Whittington are very skeptical about Cheney's story, as reported by Paul Burka.

What they forget is this now gives thousands of people an excuse to "accidentally" shoot people on hunting trips and claim the "Cheney Defense" that "it was their fault they got shot."

But let's not forget that the press didn't talk about the photo of President Bush with Jack Abramoff over the weekend. The press didn't talk about the video of the British troops beating up Iraqis. So from the Republican standpoint, it probably all worked out for them in that distractions are what they're so good at using to keep the focus off other things. It's their "three-card Monty" of political strategies.