uh oh, pioneer!

Oh, man, this is a target rich environment. And since it feels an awful lot like shooting fish in a barrel, it just isn’t quite as much fun.

Seems the vice president went quail hunting over the weekend. We don’t know whether or not he bagged any quail, but he did bag his hunting partner, Harry Whittington, 78, a millionaire civil rights attorney. One must assume, given his track record, that Whittington has made serious contributions to the Republican party in general and to Bush/Cheney in particular to have earned the chance to take a load of buckshot in the ass with the vice president. I mean, a real load of buckshot in the ass instead of the same old/same old buckshot in the ass Dick Cheney delivers in his stump speech – you know, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and any Democrat who does anything other than shutting up and sitting on his hands is aiding and abetting Osama bin Laden.

One group has stuck the perfect label to this whole mess: Fudd-gate. As in Elmer "I must shoot the wabbit" Fudd.

On a personal note, my father was shot and seriously wounded in a hunting accident when I was in junior high school, so I am seriously concerned about a hunter who mistakes a civil rights attorney for a quail. My father, at least, was mistaken for an elk – and by that I don’t mean one of those Elks Club elks. I mean an elk with antlers.

The Bush Administration is been at war with civil rights attorney, even Republican civil rights attorney, so there is a great deal of irony in Dick “Hawkeye” Cheney plugging one on a Texas ranch. I’m sure Cheney wanted to do the same thing to John Edwards during his vice-presidential debate. But instead of buckshot, he had to use bullshit to bully his way through that head-to-head outing. It got awfully deep that night.

Much the way it’s getting awfully deep now, as reporters began grilling Scotty “Spank Boy” McClellan over the way this nasty news was handled.

Seems Cheney dropped his load on Whittington at about 5:30 p.m. Texas time Saturday, and the news didn’t break until 18 hours later, until after all the Sunday chat shows had been aired. Even then, it didn’t come out through White House channels. It came out when the owner of the ranch dialed up the fine folks at the local Corpus Christi newspaper. Now, the last time I checked, the owner of a ranch in Corpus Christi is not a paid White House spokesperson.

So, what is the veep hiding?

Corpus Christi police were not permitted to talk to Cheney -- prevented by the Secret Service. If there was some impropriety involved in the incident, was the Secret Service involved in a cover-up.

There is no comment from the White House regarding reports that the Corpus Christi Police Department wanted to question the Veep as to why Whittington had been dredged in flour, salt, pepper and a dash of Hungarian paprika by the time he reached the local emergency room.

The story, itself, already has undergone several changes. At first, it was said that Whittington came up behind Cheney and startled him. Then it changed to Whittington wandering inadvertently into Cheney's line of fire. It could be that Whittington just asked the Veep about his incident with Patrick Leahy on the Senate floor and, instead of dropping the "F bomb" on him, Cheney unloaded his scatterguage.

The question that hasn't been asked in all the grilling over the timeline was whether or not alcohol was involved. Had the veep tanked up before hitting the field? Was the 18-hour gap lag time so the scotch could work its way out of Cheney's sytem?

Either way, it's clear now that SOMEONE in the Bush Administration finally has combat experience. And perhaps the 18-hour gap was merely because Cheney was waiting to be welcomed as a liberator by the Texas quail.

There’s more shit to hit the fan over this unfortunate incident. Just like there’s more shit to hit the fan over Cheney’s role in the Valerie Plame leak investigation. And Cheney’s energy policy meetings.

More soon.