1. If you were not in fact drunk as a skunk at the time you shot a 78 year-old man in the face, Dick, why did you go to so much trouble to get MSNBC to scrub Katharine Armstong's comments about alcohol at the hunt out of their article? Boy you guys sure gets a lot of media service for that $1.6 billion a year.
2. The official story says that the buckshot migrated to Whittington's heart through the bloodstream. How did your crack medical team get the blood to flow backwards in Mr. Whittington's body such that the buckshot "sprayed into his skin" ("like little raindrops") got sucked back into the coronary artery? This story should really be eclipsing all others.
3. Did you enlist the help of Arlen Specter, author of the Warren Commission's "Magic Bullet theory," to help you out with yours? It would take some magic BB's indeed from a distance of 30 yards to ricochet back into such a tight pattern (see above). But if it's good enough for JFK, I suppose Mr. Whittington should feel honored.
4. How happy are you that the State of Texas did not handle this like they would have if you had been graced with an Hispanic surname? An indictment for manslaughter and a $20 million judgment against the ranch owner is probably nothing a white Republican boozehound such as yourself should have to worry about, after all.
5. You must be equally grateful that the former Chairman of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Division was not only the property owner but the witness to the event. And that she was able to call the Texas Parks and Wildlife Division to write up a report clearing the you of any use of drugs and alcohol before any law enforcement officer actually spoke to you. Case o'cocktail weenies to the Armstrong Ranch for her!
6. If the guards at the Armstrong Ranch didn't know to let the sheriff's office onto the property because they didn't know the shooting had happened, what did they think the ambulance was for?
7. Can you tell us if, in the future, a Texas divorcee will always be responsible for deciding whether or not the American people are entitled to know that the Vice President of the United States has put an old man in the ICU?
8. Did George Bush really know what had happened on Saturday night, and was thus simply unable to control the actions of you (his boss) with regard to the press, or did you just not think he needed to know anything until Sunday morning like the obviously superfluous Scott McClellan?
9. How low will you and the rest of the Cheney Administration go to badmouth an old man who may be dying in all of this, and how long will the media cooperate? Maureen O'Dowd called the efforts of Alan Simpson, Norm Coleman and the compliant *journalists* who have engaged in "blame the stupid victim" game as both "outsourcing smear" and "Swift-bb-ing." Should we expect news of Whittington's Al-Quaeda connections soon?
10. Although the Wittington family was initially eager to give you a pass in all of this, are they still quite so happy to do so after watching their father blamed and backstabbed in the media this week? We've heard precious little from them as the week has worn on, and his co-workers seem to be getting mighty angry at the Swift-bb-ing. Are they in line for any Iraq security or Hurricane Katrina reconstruction contracts?
Because enquiring minds want to know.
(graphic by Jesus' General)
Jane Hamsher blogs regularly at firedoglake.blogspot.com