[Dialogue] Dick Cheney Goes Hunting

Fri Feb 17 11:35:52 EST 2006

AlterNet

Dick Cheney Goes Hunting

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet
Posted on February 14, 2006, Printed on February 17, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/32240/

Of course the jokes are flying all over Texas -- what's the fine for
shooting a lawyer? -- and so forth. Dick-Cheney-shooting-Harry-Whittington
is fraught, as they say, with irony. It's not as though the ground in Texas
is littered with liberal Republicans. I think the vice president winged the
only one we've got.

Not that I accuse Harry Whittington of being an actual liberal -- only by
Texas Republican standards, and that sets the bar about the height of a
matchbook. Nevertheless, Whittington is seriously civilized, particularly on
the issues of crime, punishment and prisons. He served on both the Texas
Board of Corrections and on the bonding authority that builds prisons. As he
has often said, prisons do not curb crime, they are hothouses for crime:
"Prisons are to crime what greenhouses are to plants."

In the day, whenever there was an especially bad case of
new-ignoramus-in-the-legislature -- a "lock 'em all up and throw away the
key" type -- the senior members used to send the prison-happy, tuff-on-crime
neophyte to see Harry Whittington, a Republican after all, for a little
basic education on the cost of prisons.

When Whittington was the chairman of Texas Public Finance Authority, he had
a devastating set of numbers on the demand for more, more, more prison beds.
As Whittington was wont to point out, the only thing prisons are good for is
segregating violent people from the rest of society, and most of them belong
in psychiatric hospitals to begin with. The severity of sentences has no
effect on crime.

Texas still keeps the nonviolent, the retarded, senior citizens, etc. locked
up for ridiculous periods -- all at taxpayer expense. If we could ever get
to where we spend as much per pupil on education as we do per prisoner, this
state would take off like a rocket. In 2003, we spend nearly $15,000 per
prisoner, while average per-pupil spending was just over $8,000.

I am not trying to make a big deal out of a simple hunting accident for
partisan purposes -- just thought it was a good chance to pay tribute to old
Harry, a thoroughly decent man. However, I was offended by the
never-our-fault White House spin team. Cheney adviser Mary Matalin said of
her boss, "He was not careless or incautious (and did not) violate any of
the (rules). He didn't do anything he wasn't supposed to do." Of course he
did, Ms. Matalin, he shot Harry Whittington.

Which brings us to one of the many paradoxes of the Bush administration,
which claims to be creating "the responsibility society." It's hard to think
of a crowd less likely to take responsibility for anything they have done or
not done than this bunch. They're certainly good at preaching responsibility
to others -- and blaming other people for everything that goes wrong on
their watch.

Of course the Cheney shooting was an accident.

But is it an accident if your home and your life are destroyed by the flood
following a hurricane? Especially if the flood was caused by failed levees,
a government responsibility?

Is it an accident if you are born with a clubfoot and your parents are too
poor to pay for the operation to fix it? Is there any societal
responsibility in such a case?

Is it an accident when your manufacturing job gets shipped overseas and all
you can find to replace it is a low- wage job at the big-box store with no
health insurance, and your kid breaks his leg, and you can't pay the bill,
so you have to declare bankruptcy under a new law that leaves you broke for
good, with no chance of ever getting out of debt? Or was all of that caused
by deliberate government policy? Cheney is much given to lecturing us about
taking responsibility. When and where does societal responsibility come in?

Cheney has a curious, shifting history on issues of blame and
responsibility. He was vice chair of the congressional committee that spent
11 months investigating the Iran-Contra affair and author of its minority
report. As John W. Dean highlights in a recent essay, the 500-page majority
report concluded the entire affair "was characterized by pervasive
dishonesty and inordinate secrecy." But Cheney's report said the Reagan
administration's repeated breaking of the law were "mistakes . were just
that -- mistakes in judgment and nothing more."

Those of you who saw Cheney's interview with Jim Lehrer last week may recall
the passage on Darfur that ended with this:

Lehrer: "It's still happening. There are now 2 million people homeless."

Cheney: "Still happening, correct."

Lehrer: "Hundreds of thousands of people have died, and -- so you're
satisfied the U.S. is doing everything it can do?"

Cheney: "I am satisfied we're doing everything we can do."

His head still tilts over more to the right when he lies. 

Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings. 

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