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Actual CNN headline:

Shooting victim apologizes to vice president

Anyone who doubts that we live in an absolutely batshit crazy time should print out that headline and look at it several times a day. Because that, my friends, is the world we live in.

Anyone got any vodka? Or grain alcohol?

RELATED POST BELOW: Congress, why do you have to make me hit you like that?

RELATED: Iraq apologizes for being invaded

UPDATE: VP Accident Tale Filled with Discrepancies

AND THIS…

The shooting could hardly be a better metaphor for Cheney. It neatly packages his faulty judgment, insularity and arrogance in a story that is not cataclysmic on its own terms but will prove hard to forget. That’s too bad for Cheney, and certainly for Harry Whittington. But it is a blessing for anyone hoping to restore some accountability to a government that increasingly believes it is a law unto itself.

-Jonathan Alter, Newsweek

Oh and one more thing…

While ranch owner Katherine Armstrong told the media initially that absolutely no alcohol had been consumed by the hunting party, Cheney did tell Brit Hume that he had “had a beer at lunch.” This line was conveniently removed from the broadcasted interview and the posted transcript.

As one commenter elsewhere noted, “I’ll stop calling this administration ‘Orwellian’ when they stop using ‘1984’ as their political playbook.”

Why all the hysteria? The vice president accidentally shot a hunting companion with buck-shot over the weekend. He is in “very stable condition.” The media were not notified for some time. And we’re all supposed to be worked up about that?…Who cares? I don’t.

-Mark Levin, National Review Online

Forgot to mention this gem from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ testimony about the domestic spying:

“Well, Senator, I’ll repeat what the president has said, and that is to the extent that Congress wants to suggest legislation, obviously, we’ll listen to your ideas.”

Hmmm. So now Congress just “suggests” stuff, and maybe, just maybe, King George will consider it. How magnanimous of him.

If a Republican wins the White House in 2008 (I give it an 85 percent chance), that person is going to make George W. Bush look like a piker. We will look back fondly at the restraint and common sense of the GWB administration.

The future’s so bright, I gotta retreat into my concrete-reinforced fallout shelter.

Glenn Greenwald absolutely nails it in his deconstruction of what I have come to call the Bush Cult. All that matters to these people is fealty to one man, George W. Bush. Bush tomorrow announces that we are in a War on Peanut Butter, and these people organize a peanut butter bonfire within hours. Past statements in support of peanut butter never happened. John Kerry loves peanut butter. Anyone who questions this new PBW are traitorous bastards who should be hanged until they are dead, dead, dead. (Or suffocated in peanut butter. Whichever is handier.)

I’ve been saying this stuff for years. Sadly, at this point, the small number of people who are even willing to broach the subject won’t make much of a difference. The cultists have to leave on their own power. We can’t kidnap half of the nation and throw them in a van.

UPDATE: As Glenn’s commenters, and Glenn himself, point out, this isn’t really a Bush Cult. It’s an authoritarian cult. It can (and most likely will) be transferred to whoever succeeds Bush in the White House. It’s comforting to think we have an all-knowing, all-seeing leader who can protect us and love us. Too bad it’s all a fiction.

In a post on Balloon Juice about how Dick Cheney accidentally shot someone on a quail hunting trip in Texas:

How come we never hear any good news about hunting accidents?

(Just for the record: the man Cheney shot was *not* Scooter Libby. And to be fair, he probably shouldn’t have been wearing that novelty quail costume.)

UPDATE: I find the sentence “Dick Cheney shot a guy in the face” to be strangely invigorating.

UPDATE II: In response to leads like this from the Washington Post:

“Vice President Cheney accidentally sprayed a companion with birdshot while hunting quail on a private Texas ranch.”

Atrios has an object lesson.

If there is a shred of justice and decency left in this country by then, Russ Feingold should be President come January 2009.

I hope we can wait that long.

• Those who criticize the government are routinely branded as traitors.
• The executive branch has unlimited power, and no accountability to either the people or the legislature.
• Political opposition is nearly non-existent.
• The government takes prisoners who are tortured and held without representation or charges for months or years in secret facilities.
• Intellectuals and universities are routinely considered fifth columns. Anti-intellectualism is rampant.
• Those who strive for civil liberties, both at home and abroad, are demonized.
• The government has started a war that has no definition, and no end. Only the government has the power to define this war and its combatants, however it sees fit.
• The press participates eagerly in the propagandization of the people, and requires no accountability from the government.

Where do we live? What year is this?

…and all the other spineless Dems who will have to stop acting like beaten dogs and abused spouses before something gets changed in this country:

This isn’t about keeping us safe. This is about whether the President is above the law.

Is that too hard to understand? Because if it is, or you can’t articulate that simple, basic idea to the public, then pack your bags and go home. Now.

When Sen. Joe Biden asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales whether al Qaeda members wouldn’t just *assume* they were being monitored on the phone, leak or no leak, Gonzales responded:

“If they’re not reminded about it all the time in newspapers and in stories, they sometimes forget.”

Wily terrorist scum or Forrest Gump? You decide.

UPDATE: Another gem from Gonzales:

“President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale.”

UPDATE II: True, but sad, words from a site called “Right Wing Nut House”:

“No GOP senator would ever do anything to harm Bush in the NSA hearings. Ever. The Dems are in the minority. Hence the outcome of these hearings is immaterial, and thus so are the hearings.”