Dick Cheney's Blue Dress:
So, like, apparently the country pays attention whenever someone in the White House blows a load all over another person. For what is the birdshot in Harry Whittington but so much spooge on a blue dress? When Monica Lewinsky handed her semen-stained frumpy frock over to Kenneth Starr, who then gave it to the FBI for DNA analysis, which then, of course, proved that President Bill Clinton likes 'em dumb and chubby, it caused orgasmic paroxysms all over DC since it gave the vast right wing conspiracy the perfect cudgel with which to beat us all and say, "See? See? Clinton bad. Clinton a liar. We no like Clinton." And it gave Orrin Hatch a purpose for existence for a year or so.

For those on the right, the blue dress, the Lewinsky affair, spoke to something deeply, perversely wrong with the man in the White House, despite, you know, keeping the nation relatively safe, wealthy, and sane for over five years. At it's most basic, the blue dress let 'em get 'im. But this isn't about what was right or wrong about the nation's reaction to the blue dress.

The handling of Dick Cheney shooting his own wad all over the face and chest of Whittington is almost bewildering to watch. Last night, in the post-blizzard Northeast, the Rude Pundit stood behind a hunched-over old woman on a street corner who used her cane to beat at the gathered slush, as if she could somehow will the properties of icy water to not make it simply puddle back. But she kept slashin' away. The Rude Pundit wanted to scream, "Fuck, if you can't walk through it, go around it, or just don't come out all," but out of respect for the muttering woman, he stood there until the light changed and he could cross the other way. In other words, you can beat that shit for as long as you like, but it ain't goin' away.

Confusing metaphors aside, what the fuck? Huh? What the fuck would it have taken for Cheney to simply say on Saturday night, "I shot a man just for snorin'" or some such shit. And why the fuck has he said nothing yet? Even some on the right, like Linda Chavez, are wondering, too (so, oh, goody, the story's valid because one of their own thinks it's fucked-up). That's why this is the blue dress, man. At the end of the day, it reveals the arrogance of the men (and the worshipful woman or two they let hang out with 'em) in the White House.

What happened in the Texas brush in and of itself is virtually meaningless beyond Whittington fighting for his life for the crime of apparently being as tall as a low-flying quail (Seriously, aren't you supposed to aim a little higher if you're shootin' birds? Or a little lower if the fuckers are on the ground?). But the cover-up is the story, because it says so much about the Bush administration: about its savage hatred of the press, about its secretiveness, about its manipulation of facts, about its ability to blithely lie and call it truth, about its inability to be accountable for any error, about its obvious disdain of the American public.

If you are an arrogant prick who fucks around on your girlfriend, wrecks her car, kicks her cat, and denies all of it, even if there's a foot print on her cat's ass, what do you think is gonna happen when she sees you drinking milk out of the carton? What do you think she's gonna say when you quickly pull it away and try to say that you weren't doing it? You deserve what you get, motherfucker, you reap what you have sown. For if you're willing to lie about something so mundane, goddamn, what huge, gut-wrenching lies you must also be hiding.

The blue dress revealed meanings beyond its milky marks. And there's something much more penetrating than birdshot going on here.