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I'm sure we all predicted the loud, rancorous attacks against people with an understandable curiosity over a vice-president shooting a man, and against the news agencies that demanded some explanations.
You see, the Republican Party bills itself as responsible with weapons. Aside from championing unabashed greed, they see their "We will take care of you even if you won't take care of yourselves" attitude as the biggest element of their appeal. That whole "we're strong on defense" mantra is a major portion of their raison d'etre... it's the item that won them the last election (if indeed you believe they actually won). It's their professed reason for being in Iraq. It's what gets all those poor people to vote against their own economic interests. They have weapons, they know how to use them, it makes them mighty, and, by God, it makes them right.
So, when their leader, himself, proves negligent with a weapon the implications are clear. If he's negligent with his own personal weapon, how can we trust him with the nation's entire stockpile? That's the question that Republicans don't want people asking themselves. When the rest of us assert that Mr. Cheney was irresponsible it's as though we're questioning their manhood, itself. We have attacked their reason for being. We could have called them all gay and gotten similar nasty responses.
"A conservative must never allow himself to be seen as less than perfect" I heard one Republican confess recently. To that end every shortcoming must be denied, and every accuser destroyed. For the time being, the guns they love are still outlawed as devices to settle controversies, so they're forced to resort to the weapon that's available to them: cheap, nasty lies and denials.
For my part I won't let them forget this incident. I'm going to remind them of that irresponsibility at every turn. That is, of course, until they make what Dick Cheney did legal.
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