Vice President Dick Cheney, attended by friends and a bevy of secret service agents, turned and proceeded to shoot a 78 year old friend and multi-millionaire GOP financier full of buckshot while hunting in Texas. Cheney claims it was an accident and that he thought that he was shooting at a covey of quail. Luckily, the victim is recovering in the hospital. [Since he is a prominent lawyer, one wonders whether he will pursue a claim against Cheney for negligence or assault with a deadly weapon.]
The first and most obvious question that this episode raises is whether we want Cheney standing a heartbeat from the presidency and just as close to the trigger for WMD's in the US arsenal. Someone who is so impulsive that he does not look carefully and think before pulling the trigger is not someone that inspires a lot of confidence if he is could as easily have had a nuclear weapon in his grasp as a shotgun. And, let's face it, Cheney has already shown a penchant for being hot tempered and letting his wrath loose upon undeserving individuals [eg. Ambassador Wilson and Valerie Plame].
The next logical question is whether Cheney has a firm enough grasp on reality to be invested with the power and authority that he dangerously wields. Statements that he has made publicly regarding his assessment of the status of the war and the insurgency in Iraq are about as accurate as his assessment that his hunting partner was a covey of quail. Those misjudgments have caused serious injury to others. Only the scale of the damage is different. While it is extremely doubtful, perhaps this experience will provide Cheney a glimmer of insight about the serious consequence of misjudgments in the use of lethal force.
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