Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

COLUMN: Opinions editor thanks Cheney for birdshot
By Tim Hill
Sidelines (Middle Tennessee State U.)
02/16/2006

(U-WIRE) MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for making all of the dreams of journalists come true. Disney Pixar should award you with a trip to any of their resorts for all that you've done to help our industry this week.The accidental shooting of your Republican lawyer friend has plusses and minuses for liberal and conservative reporters alike. Nobody has been mentioning where the "American Idol" contestants stand so early in the season. Rather, the question of the town is, "Did you catch 'The Daily Show' the other night at all?"

I didn't, but I may check the 'motherload' when I get a chance.

As a conservative whose editorial position gives me ample opportunities to defend your record, Harry's chest pellets have me happy for the right reasons. The argument can be made that there is more to this hunting story than there ever was to the CIA leak case. President Bush owes you, Rove, Libby and even Judy Miller official pardons. The sooner, the better Mr. Whittington will heal.

My parents, who live outside of the nation's capitol, have said they think the Washington press corps is trying to take this non-event and turn it into an event. That leads to a greater question-and a good reason why you need me on your White House communications team after I graduate. "How do we recover from this?" is what you are all asking. I know it, and Fox News hopes you know it.

The answers are simple, really. You don't realize the mine that has been opened up on public lands for you here. The RNC should be running ads deriding all of the Democratic presidents who have a history of gunfire in their past.

President Andrew Jackson or Johnson was the one who got into a duel over comments made about his inadvertent premarital relations with his wife.

There's some other great news for the administration here that can be translated to our troops overseas.

According to Wikipedia, "A code duello is a set of rules for a one-on-one combat, or duel. Code duellos regulate fair fights and thus help prevent vendettas between families and social factions [Iraq insurgency; 'After all, this guy tried to kill my dad' line now makes sense].

Further, "They assure that non-violent means of reaching agreement have been exhausted and that harm is limited by both limiting the terms of engagement [refusing to bomb hospitals, mosques, or schools before the war] and providing medical care [not pulling the pin when you had the chance to]. Finally, they assure that the proceedings have a number of witnesses [The infamous deck of Saddam cards].

Continuing, "The witnesses assure grieving members of factions [Sunnis] of the fairness of the fight [not a holy war], and help provide testimony if legal authorities get involved [Abu Ghiraib]."

The President likes to refer to former President Clinton as "my predecessor." This shooting story lifts that burden. If the President wants to know what his public statement should be, it should be nothing less than the following:

"You are all acting like this is the first time a sitting Vice President has shot someone before. Aaron Burr is on the complete rewritten historical record for being the first Vice President to shoot someone while in office. We're all just so glad that the Democrats are applying the same standard in this lawyer shooting investigation as they did with former Clinton White House Counsel Vince Foster's alleged suicide. In closing, let me just say that Harry Whittington was a rare kind of lawyer — he didn't deserve to be shot."

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