Cheney fires first shot in battle over lobbying reform

Vice President Cankles took the fight to reduce the influence of big campaign donors into his own hands Saturday, shooting wealthy Austin lawyer and longtime Bush-Cheney contributor Harry Whittington in the face, neck, and chest while purportedly aiming at a covey of quail.

Never one for the spotlight, Cheney tried to keep his reform efforts secret (just as he has done with energy reform and constitutional reform). Whittington survived the Vice President’s reform agenda, however, and, against government wishes, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times exposed the program 24 hours later.

CNN is reporting that the influential Austinite was “alert and doing fine” in a Corpus Christi hospital, and it is likely Whittington will survive Cheney’s attempts to change the culture of Washington Politics. “Nobody wants this to happen, but it does,” said Katharine Armstrong, owner of the ranch where the reform summit was staged.

In a related story, Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi thinks he’s Jesus.


Update: In all seriousness, as the night has progressed, this story has become a gruesome metaphor for the way the current administration does business. Josh Marshall has digested many a hunter’s account of such accidents, pointing up Cheney’s almost certain incompetence in whirling and firing behind him. The hunters are also collectively incredulous when it comes to the “blame the victim” account of the accident. Editor & Publisher reports that the vice president’s office and the White House were in full cover-up mode until that cover was blown by Armstrong when she called a reporter friend 18 hours after the accident occurred. (And, BradBlog reports that Katherine Armstrong’s mother Anne helped get Cheney his job at Halliburton. She also served on President Reagan’s FISA Advisory board and was a Bush 43 Pioneer. Kos and Shakespeare’s Sister also add threads to the tangled web.)

The New York Times reports that in 1999, then Texas Governor Bush appointed Whittington to head the state Funeral service commission: “When he was named, a former executive director of the commission, Eliza May, was suing the state, saying that she had been fired because she investigated a funeral home chain that was owned by a friend of Mr. Bush.”

So, to sum up: Special access and favors for cronies and big money donors. Incompetence, first covered up, then replaced with a “blame the victim” strategy. Classic Bush-Cheney.