A Shooting Explained In Cartoons

I have a theory, and when I have a theory I am more dangerous than Dick Cheney with a 28-gauge shotgun at sunset. Way more dangerous. But today I am going to connect some dots, dots that reach into the War on Terror, the Danish cartoons that have incited riots, and the common belief that the Bush Administration is rogue and threatening. I hope I will not strain myself as I reach from dot to dot, and I pray I will not stretch your credulity.

Let us begin with stark political facts. Over the last few weeks even the most pro-Democratic Party pundit would have a hard time defending the claim that the Democrats have had great success of late. The failure to have a meaningful showing in either rather recent US Supreme Court nomination hearings is surely baneful for Democrats; the failure to get any meaningful gain in Democrats' posturing around "domestic" wiretapping, misnamed as that is, by the Bush Administration; and failure to get any meaningful gains regarding the Party's constant complaining (like a harridan?) about the Iraq War; all these combine to make the Party look out of touch. And the recent absurdities uttered by former VP Al Gore, and the gratuitous grandstanding at the Coretta Scott King funeral by former President Jimmy Carter, portend bad days for Democrats.

Now, there are two very significant assertions made hourly by Democrats in America, and they are: America is less safe as a result of President Bush's invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the Bush Administration is the most arrogant and secretive administration in history. These two ideas are repeated so often, mantra-like, they may as well be planks in the DNC platform. But there are two other assertions that have been made so often they are no longer even uttered, becoming footings in the foundations of Democratic mythology: Dick Cheney is always in hiding, and he is the de facto President of the United States.

It is easy to be fooled, but not as easy as it is to fool. Comedian, political author and pundit, Bill Maher posited for our rumination the following on Hardball with Chris Matthews on Tuesday:

Look, you know, Chris, you don‘t have to sell me on Dick Cheney being a bad guy, and just to go back to what you mentioned before, about the connection between Iraq and 9-11 -- to me, that was always a much bigger lie ... That was the bigger lie, and that's the one that Cheney kept pushing. I don't have the quotes before me, but I remember they were very carefully crafted, so the beginning of the sentence started out talking about 9-11 and the terrorists, and the end of the sentence was always, and if we could strike them at the very geographical base where they come from [ie. Iraq].

It would be easy to laugh at Maher, not because he is funny, but because he is not. Most snarky critics of the VP suggest - daily - that the VP is always in hiding, passing through America incognito. And yet they are the first to suggest that the VP sold us on the Iraq War, which would be hard to do if he's constantly in seclusion, ostensibly lying to us in absentia. But somehow Maher places the responsibility of connecting Iraq and 9/11 squarely on Cheney. Obviously Maher is not alone.

Each of us has heard the jokes and snark: Cheney, knowing what he knows now, would still shoot Harry Whittington; America has found the weapon of mass destruction--Dick Cheney; Cheney loads, aims, fires, and then ask questions later, blaming the victim. It is all typical boilerplate, inextricably linked to convictions that Cheney is arrogant, secretive, the de facto president and responsible for the War. Come to think of it, the portrait sketched of Cheney is suggestive of a cartoon character.

And cartoons do indeed play a part here. For it is my conviction that the reason many of America's most progressive newspapers refuse to print Danish cartoons critical of Islamic extremists' perversions of orthodox Islam has nothing to do with the noble protection of Islamic sentiments. It is not an effort to bring peace between warring civilizations; nor is it the praiseworthy act of placing love of one's neighbor over the love of one's right to free expression. For there is no way in hell that America's greatest defenders of speech would be so cavalier about speech.

What is going on here is subtle: the liberal establishment would like to discover anything that proves their thesis that Americans are less safe in the wake of Bush foreign policy. And it has discovered such a thing in the cartoons: America, even Europe, is so unsafe the press is even fearful of printing cartoons. Rather than things improving under Bush, things have deterioriated dramatically. Simple cartoons place us in peril! Cartoons like Dick Cheney, who created this whole war in the first place.

Triggergate is a media distraction from many things. One ignored facet of the cartoon riots is that the riots prove there is a real enemy out there; but not one provoked by American policies or actions, but by pure European values. All this media-hype steers us away from looking at what makes radical Islam radical, filled with radical hate for the West. How unfortunate. But the distraction is even more thorough, for the American press is going to worship this shooting event as a divine revelation, a miraculous vision that proves, without a doubt, everything they've tried to prove for 5 years: that "Cheney is in charge," that both President and VP are "above the law," fudging intelligence (such as fudging the details of the shooting) and manipulating the media; that both men are tyrants that shoot first and ask questions later.

That is what this is about. Politics. Not truth.

Lastly, for those who believe that the VP would have been better served to announce the shooting immediately, I offer the following:

David Gregory (in a parallel, parodied universe): Several White House officials are expressing concern tonight that Vice President Cheney's initial reaction to having shot Mr. Whittington was self-serving. Even NBC's Jay Leno got into the act, joking last night that Mr. Cheney's first reaction to the mishap was to run over to Harry Whittington and ask for his cell phone. According to Mr. Leno, Cheney called Fox News' Brit Hume and told him that he was completely responsible for the shooting.

Actually, Contratimes' witnesses of the shooting report that Cheney, after shooting at the flushed quail, rushed over to the fallen Whittington, his eyes searching left and right, up and down. My sources tell me that Whittington, aware that Cheney was in a panic, gingerly rolled over onto his side and reached behind his back. "You looking for this?" Whittington asked Cheney. The two men locked eyes, and Cheney offered a small grin. Whittington, though in pain, then flipped Cheney the bird.

[By the way, at least one Democrat suggests that Cheney intentionally delayed the report to inflate the story, knowing that the inflated story would steer the media away from problems in the White House, the War on Terror, and sundry other problems. See the seventh comment, made by David Porter, at the Democratic National Committee's Blog.]

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.