Cheney should resign. Period.
15 February 2006, 7:52 pmThe parodists are having a field day, but this isn’t a situation that calls for parody. It’s a situation that calls for action, and the action it calls for is Vice President Cheney’s immediate resignation.
The Vice President shot someone, and behaved afterwards in a way that’s completely consistent with an attempted cover up.
Whether it was an accident has no relevance. The Vice President made one ciritical error in judgment in shooting his hunting partner. He made a second, even more serious, error in abusing the public trust afterwards. High public office fundamentally requires good judgment, and he’s unequivocally demonstrated that he’s not qualified for the role he holds.
While I’m at it, this is another in a series of incidents that strongly suggest that The President also has a critical lack of judgment in the area of selecting competent staff members and advisors. I’m inclined to call for his resignation as well.
Well duh…but (as you’re obviously aware) the problem is that this administration has jettisoned any sense of ethics - wait, scratch that - has probably never had a moment’s consideration for any sense of ethics, and so the notion that resignation would even be an option probably never occurred to them. I’m surprised to note, however, that I give Cheney credit for actually acknowledging that the shooting was his fault (not, as his office shamefully tried to say earlier, the victim’s). But that’s in the personal realm, more or less: the notion that such an acknowledgement could happen in the directly political realm seems as likely as Cheney admitting that he’s come to love the taste of human flesh. Not that that’s true - or that it’s not. Just an observation.
I agree that he probably won’t. And honestly, I fear that focusing on his lying about this issue is a little like focusing on lying about having sex with That Woman. It’s a private matter, and I think the pressure to cover it up is very much manufactured by knowing that the media– and face it, we– take a perverse fascination in the private becoming suddenly public.
I honestly would just hate to see him resign over this, because he’d be getting off scot free on all the other things he really deserves to resign for.
In 2000 he headed the committee to find a running mate for Bush, and nominated himself
His electric bill in 2001 (http://www.bear-left.com/original/2001/0722elec.html)
His Enron ties and closed-door meetings on energy policy
The Iraq war
Staying on the Halliburton payroll when it receives no-bid contracts for the Iraq reconstruction
Oh, I don’t have the heart to go on.
Ezra, while there are certainly more important things about Cheney than this, I disagree that this is essentially private: when the Vice President of the United States accidentally shoots someone, at the very least the President should be informed - and not 20 hours later. (If you haven’t seen it yet, the transcript of the White House press conference here - http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/02/20060213-4.html - is hilarious in McClellan’s attempts to deny the obvious.) What I’d like to hear is reporters asking the medical personnel who treated Whittington how long it was until they could assure the VP’s entourage that Whittington was in no grave danger: my guess is that time would coincide nearly exactly with when the information was finally released. I suspect that if the injuries had been more severe, full coverup mode would have been enacted. Anyway, about the bigger issues: people often latch on to smaller issues because they tend to more clearly illustrate problems than larger issues’ complexity allows. I think this is an example: we know Cheney’s secretive and manipulative, and this is a simple, straightforward case of those qualities.
What I’m getting at with the pubic/private thing is that you don’t have to be “a senior administration official” to shoot someone in a hunting accdent. You do have to be one to manufacture a case for a war which will kill tens of thousands of people, and from which *you will personally profit*.
I don’t think that public officials should be scrutinized more harshly in the arena of “things you don’t have to be a senior administration official to do”. Maybe, if it shows a lapse in responsibility and judgement, say, the accident was driving drunk and killing someone in a car accident. But taking public servants to task for things which could have happened to anyone creates an environment which practically requires cover-ups.
Also, let’s face it, Cheney’s in charge; why should he check in with the president?
I also take back a statement in my earlier comment. I’d take a resignation any way I can get it.
The point isn’t the shooting, it’s the coverup.
Yes. But the coverup, however exemplary in its Chenian evil, is insignificant when compared to his major crimes.
Wow, you guys have been lively. A few thoughts:
And that’s why I want to do my bit (however trivial) to raise its visibility in the public consciousness.
One of the things the long delay suggests to me is that Cheney might not want to have undergone a blood alcohol test immediately. I’m not sure how much credence should be given to folks making allegations along that line (or making the argument that Cheney violated hunting protocol by firing too near the ground), but I think they’re reasonable things to wonder about.
If lying under oath was enough to bring down Tricky Dick, then it was enough to bring down Bill Clinton. As far as I’m concerned, whatever infidelities may have taken place was a matter for the Clintons and That Woman, but perjury was another thing entirely.
That’s the spirit. For the benefit of the FBI and NSA bots, I would like to clarify that my official personal stance is not “by any means necessary” but “by any lawful means necessary.”
I’m concerned about the lack of promptness of disclosure on two levels. First, it’s a betrayal of the public trust. Second, it’s a failure of judgment — it should have been obvious that:
That should have led to the conclusion that immediate discloure was the most prudent course.
You’ll get no argument from me, but I think for a lot of people, Cheney’s business practices are just business as usual — even if, as you point out, his quest for self-aggrandizement impacts more people than the average pointy-haired bosses — and not cause for moral outrage. On the other hand, I think most of us should be able to agree that non-forthcomingness about shooting people (in non combat situations) is a) not good and b) the sort of thing police detectives generally take an interest in.