Deadeye Dick

So Dick Cheney finally got to shoot somebody. Mind you, it was only a friend he mistook for a quail, but still he got the shot in and put the poor man in intensive care.

The vice-president of the United States isn't much of a hero. During the Vietnam War, rather than face an angry Viet Cong with a gun, he sought five -- count them, five -- draft deferments. His political colleague George W. Bush used his family's influence to avoid the war via the National Guard route, in effect hiding behind his daddy's money. Yet it was the perfect war for two young, healthy, macho, right-wing Republicans, a war against godless communism; it doesn't get any better than that. Nonetheless, they preferred to run away.

This pusillanimous performance has never hindered their enthusiasm for sending other men to die. And to kill. Their own hands they have kept clean. Until now. Finally Dick managed to put a bullet into a fellow human being all by himself. Too bad it was a hunting buddy.