Decision ‘08

Quailgate: That’s SO Last Week!

How do we know for certain that the Scandal of the Century, the final nail in the coffin of the Fourth Reich of George W. Bush, has run its course in a scant seven days?

Even the Huffington Post is getting tired of flogging it…

For a look back on one of the stupidest frenzies of modern times, here’s John Burtis with the Bonifire of the Inanities…

4 Responses to “Quailgate: That’s SO Last Week!”

1 AcademicElephant Says:
February 20th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Paul Krugman lead his “Cheney, Rumsfeld, Chertoff. Levitt and ESPECIALLY Bush are not only morally bankrupt–they’re also sub-human” rant today with Quailgate, thus officially marking it as yesterday’s news…
2 Fargus Says:
February 21st, 2006 at 11:23 am
I agree, the story’s over. And nobody was ever honestly advancing the idea that Cheney was trying to hurt Whittington. That would be absurd. And those who would have tried to advance that idea can be safely ignored anyway.

My only question is this: with modern conservatives, it’s all about personal responsibility. So how come in this case, the talk from conservatives was all about disavowing Cheney of his personal responsibility in this case? Sure, he took responsibility on his Fox News interview, and bully for that, but the talking points prior to that were that it was Whittington’s fault, etc.

Just an observation that seems like a bit of a double standard, to me.
3 peter Says:
February 21st, 2006 at 2:18 pm
I agree that the story is over – it got its initial impetus from the fact that the events were so weird (the VP shooting someone in the face – it sounds like a bad Jon Stewart bit) and then it grew from the inept way it was handled by the administration. Since there was no investigation to speak of, we have to go by the word of the tightly knit group who was on the Armstrong Ranch that day. As far as I’m aware, nobody gave testimony under oath. (As Jay Leno said: “isn’t ‘I only had one beer’ what you tell the cops?” My guess is that there was no excessive drinking before they went hunting – but we’ll never know.) For those who view the episode as being emblematic of the incompetence and secrecy of the Bush administration, there are plenty of other examples (with far weightier consequences) than what the Economist described as “fat old toffs going hunting.”

The thing which I find to be particularly ironic is Cheney’s ridicule of John Kerry’s hunting trip in 2004. In fact, Kerry has been hunting since he was twelve, and to my knowledge he never shot another hunter in the face. People in glass houses…
4 Mark Says:
February 21st, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Well, I can only say that blaming it on Whittington was wrong - and I’m glad to see Cheney stepped up to the plate…