I went to a small book party last night for James Carville and Paul Begala hosted by Bill Clinton at the offices of his foundation up in Harlem. I don't know James at all, really, but I've always liked Paul, who is a genuinely southern, Catholic, populist liberal Democrat, and who, unluckily for Dick Cheney, really knows how to hunt quail (and I'm guessing, not from the inside of a car). Over at TPM Café, Paul goes through some of the more obvious--to him anyway--holes in Cheney's story and leaves the reader that--Rob Corddry below not withstanding--Cheney really is no more cautious in real life than when he is choosing which countries to instruct George W. Bush to invade.
Paul bent my proverbial ear for quite a while on this topic and well, seemed to really know what the heck he was talking about. Oddly enough, Clinton wanted to talk about the same thing. In his public remarks, after praising the authors, he bemoaned the fact that his wife was up for re-election and so he couldn't be as honest about it as he might like to be, but privately afterward, he wanted nothing more than to engage in all kinds of analysis and speculation, and like Paul, demonstrating that Democrats hunt just like real Americans (and not, as a matter of fact, like Cheney, who only goes hunting with Republican fund-raising millionaires who look like quails and Supreme Court justices who hand them unearned election victories).
Anyway, if you read the comments to Paul's post, you see that Cheney appears to have shot the guy almost point blank. When you consider that he never bothered notifying anyone, you have to wonder whether this mishap was, as are so many hunting incidents, alcohol-related. It would be the only sensible decision for delay, since it's hard to believe that anyone could be so arrogant as to think that they could get away with a SSWVP (shooting-someone-while-vice-president). Otherwise, I guess I'm still a little worried that there's a Rove angle to this and like, illegal domestic spying, will rebound somehow to help the Evil Ones.
Finally, Clinton was a quite gracious host and invited everyone into his office to check out all the stuff he saved from being president along with the photos. It's a tribute to what fancy friends he has (Bob Rubin, Roger Altman, etc), that he didn't worry too much about people putting stuff in their pockets and sneaking out. Believe me, I was tempted.
And let's give the man a nod for a blow against childhood obesity, here
Unavoidable Quote of the Day: "Everyone believed there were quail in the brush," and "while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he would still have shot Mr. Whittington in the face." --"Vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst," Rob Corddry.
Well, OK, there's one, from Rob's boss:
Now, this story certainly has its humorous aspects. ... But it also raises a serious issue, one which I feel very strongly about. ... moms, dads, if you're watching right now, I can't emphasize this enough: Do not let your kids go on hunting trips with the vice president. I don't care what kind of lucrative contracts they're trying to land, or energy regulations they're trying to get lifted -- it's just not worth it.
Iraq has become the deadliest country for journalists in the last quarter-century, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, story here. My related CAP column from last week is here.
Now he tells us, Department: Daniel Okrent, here:
He summarized the columns he wrote while public editor about alleged reporting and editing failures in the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy and the leadup to the Iraq invasion. He told a questioner: "The general rolling over on the part of the American press allowed the war to happen. I do believe that is true, and I think the press is extremely chastened by that. I think we all know how bad it was."
Uh, oh, one more person who doesn't understand the issue of domestic wire-tapping as well as Joe Klein (and his minions at Alternet), former top CIA and Department of State's Office of the Coordinator for Counter Terrorism veteran, Larry Johnson, here..