Shooting Reveals Who Really Runs the White House

The New York Times has one of those insider gossip reports on tensions between the staffs of the president (The Big Smirk) and vice-president (Dead-Eye Dickhead.) Those tensions always exist between staffs, and a situation like this one--with Dead-Eye's negligent shooting and serious wounding of a 78 year old man under still unknown circumstances at a"birds in a barrel" hunting emporium--always brings it out.

But this is the supposed vice-president, who has no constitutional duties other than presiding over the Senate (which he hardly ever performs) and letting people know where he is in case the president dies. His staff should be about as powerful as the First Lady's.

Of course that's not the case in this White House. Amidst all the grumbling and rumbing in the piece about how Smirk's staff would have been more forthcoming sooner, there's the money paragraph:

Several White House officials said no one among the White House staff, including the chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., felt empowered to dictate how news of the accident would be handled.

The Smirk's Chief can't impinge on the power of the v.p.'s staff? Think what this would have been like if the vice-president's name was Quayle (rather than the quail being yet another escaped terrorist, leaving a Republican lawyer as collateral damage.)

Not that Cheney being the real prez is any big revelation---he's the guy who worked with Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and all the architects of the current bloody policy to create booty for their corporate fellow trough feeders. And nobody much believes the Smirk can do much more than walk and clear brush at the same time.

But now it's pretty obvious to everyone, isn't it? That must drive the Smirk's staff nuts, as well as turning them even redder, this time with embarassment.