Cheney speaks...

He says, "Luke - I am your father."

Ok, so Cheney - after four days of rehearsal to get his story straight - at least admits that the guy with the gun is the one who is responsible when he shoots somebody in the face.

Some of his minions DID try to lay the blame on Whittington, but that was just the Kool-Aid Drinkers going into their "Cheney Can Do No Wrong" crouch. Now that they have Cheney's official permission to stop embarrassing themselves by spouting transparent horseshit, I'll bet they're relieved.

Cheney is not that stupid, and if he had tried such a foolish defense, damned near every real hunter in the country would have been all over him like Rush-Limbaugh-On-A-Democrat's-Blowjob, and he had enough sense to know it.

So he gave a canned interview - vetted and taped, not live, of course - from a totally sympathetic interviewer to be aired on his favorite propaganda outlet, and avoided actual, unscripted press conferences where they might ask hard questions (like, "How come you refused to talk to the sheriff?" and "Were you drinking?"), and he hopes that he can now put it behind him.

And maybe it should be put behind, because maybe we should be focusing on REAL atrocities - like these new photos from Abu Ghraib, which AREN'T any damned accident, and which should turn the stomachs of every decent American.

The treatment of those prisoners was utterly intentional. And a disgrace to the United States.

See, the really sad thing is that the Vice-President's shooting an old man in the face is one of the LEAST embarrassing things done by this administration.

It pales before the genuine atrocities and utterly Satanic actions committed in YOUR NAME, and MY name and AMERICA'S name - actions which are thoroughly evil and anti-American, and which seem to have become official policy under the cabal of sadists now in residence in the White House.

So maybe the press should shift its focus to THAT.