While Vice President Cheney continues to catch flak for grossly mishandling the aftermath of the shooting in Texas last Saturday, it is amazing that, relatively speaking, his boss, President Bush, is not drawing just as much blame. True, Cheney deserves extra scrutiny for breaking several cardinal rules of hunting when he plugged Mr. Whittington, and for whatever else he may be hiding.
But as for the slow reporting of the incident - with a nod to Watergate we will call it "the 18 ½ hour gap" - why is the media dumping it mainly on Vice when perhaps it should be versa? Isn't the president in charge here?
Good question.
Hell no, he's not. Some of us knew that already.
But consider another possibility, which has the added benefit of also being an explanation for all of the above: that the story that Bush learned about Cheney's as gunman Saturday may not be true... that the president was among the millions of Americans that Cheney wanted to keep in the dark about this detail.
In any event, Bush is now trapped. If he'd admitted that no one woke him up to tell him, and that's why McClellan didn't know until Sunday morning, that would have painted a very troubling (though not fresh) picture of a disengaged #1 man who is actually, at best, #2. But at least it would suggest that Bush took action and ordered the story out when he did find out about it.
Yet in declaring that he did know about Cheney’s role at 8 p.m. Saturday - and did absolutely nothing to tell anyone about it - an even more disturbing, and perhaps sinister, picture of the true arrogance of power may emerge.
If all takes are a few shootings for the country at large to find out who's pullin' Bush's strings, and who feels free to tell him to get fucked in matters of national interest, and just who's spineless enough to let him get away with it, fire at will. Better yet, fire at Cheney.
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