I've been as amused by how Cheney shot his friend as anyone. It demands Top Ten lists (see the comments) and clearly I haven't been watching The Daily Show enough, because if I missed Jon Stewart's take on this, who knows what other gems I haven't seen.

Also, this guy has some pontificating and lengthy quotes about what the 18-hour delay in disclosure means. I don't disagree with him, and it could eventually become interesting, but it's not there yet to me.

I'm glad to see that even though Mr. Whittington had a heart attack caused by a piece of birdshot that made its way to his heart, he is in good condition. (And by the way, I love the last couple lines of that article.) I don't especially care about his welfare - that might sound heartless or even hateful, but realistically it's hard for me to care about the welfare of complete stranger whose idea of a good time is shooting fish in a barrel with Darth Cheney. But if this guy died as a direct result of getting shot by the vice-president, well, Cheney wouldn't get jail time even though that would be considered negligent homicide if done by a native of Bethel, but it would still look pretty damn bad.

And they shouldn't get off that easily. I'm glad Whittington survived mostly for the same reason I'm not too interested in the delay, deception and disorganization surrounding the shooting. Not because it's trivial in an absolute sense, but because it's trivial relative to other stuff Bush and Cheney have done. While of course accidentally shooting your friend is bad, accidents happen. And anyone surprised at an attempt to cover this up must have watched nothing but FOX and Newsmax for the past decade. If the average American thinks this is worse than the sheer stupidity or mammoth mendacity it would take to utter "greeted as liberators" or "last throes" on national television, then we deserve these guys.