Sure, I spend Sunday working and only heard just now that the Vice President shot a man down, just to watch him die. At least that should be the reality for all the fuss that’s been made about the story. In fact, Cheney sprayed a fellow hunter with birdshot in a hunting accident. That’s the official story.

Sure, my first thought was “The Gang That Never Shoots Straight Strikes Again.” And my second was “Was that Quayle with an ‘e’ or just plain quail he hunted?” And, because of my penchant for humor, the numerous potshots by the great and mighty snarkers of the blogosphere, granted me a few laughs, which is cool.

But as I considered it, I thought, hey, give a guy a break. An accident’s an accident, why pile on the trivial stuff when there’s so much substantive evidence that our vice president is a nasty, mean, vindictive, criminal who should be tried for war crimes and shunned by polite company for all the profiteering of his cronies at the expense of the blood of our kids in Iraq?

But the more I looked, the more I saw that really did deserve further critique. A delay of reporting the accident, by 24 hours, raises numerous questions and speculation. Once again, there’s not a single good reason that can or has been advanced to explain the delay. Even a non-partisan observer would have to conclude something was amiss and the delay portends a cover-up of some important detail.

Other facts have emerged that speak volumes about Cheney’s character, such as the game-stocking preceding his hunt. I’m sure an analogy could be drawn with the way they rigged the hunt of Saddam before we invaded Iraq. Do you remember? “So what if we can’t find nukes and he’s cutting up missiles and cooperating with inspectors; if he doesn’t rub his tummy while hopping on one foot and say ‘mother, may I?’ then it’s obvious he’s hiding something and deserves to be overthrown.”

If you reread the news reports, you’ll see that the only out they gave was that if Saddam stepped down and went into exile elsewhere, the casus belli for our illegal invasion would be gone. But of course, I knew that even that wouldn’t do. He’d have to take his sons and the entire Ba’athist Party with him, and even then I felt Bush would invade to help stabilize the country or some such fresh fiction. Hussein had been a sitting duck since April Glaspie set him up before the first Gulf War.

Ultimately, whatever got covered up by the delay in reporting is fully covered up now, so I don’t see much use in beating the bushes for more here. It’s long been obvious to me that Cheney thinks he’s like British royalty, and he’d gamely terrorize a poor fox with the best of their unsporting sportsmen.

I’ve said it many times, that Cheney and Rumsfeld outNixoned Nixon, as they were the only ones from that corrupt gang that got away unscathed. Everything they’ve done since has been rigged in their favor, in both their corporate and government careers. Cheney simply lacks the talent to succeed without having everything staged and the best example of that is the only unstaged hunt he’s ever been involved with, the hunt for Osama.

But maybe Bin Laden’s at large out of professional courtesy. Two millionaires who excel at PR, continually find willing rubes to be proxies in their murderous endeavors, so the millionaires can carry on securely and secretly. And they both share the capacity to always stay one step ahead of the law and both thumb their nose at the whole concept of law, which they both think they can improvise on the fly to suit their needs.

That’s the Reality Dick that passes for entertainment these days. Winning is everything, no matter how the game is rigged, no matter how much cheating occurs, no matter how big a bastard you are, no matter who dies. The penultimate Ugly American, when Cheney passes from this mortal coil, it will be the only great public service he’s done for the country, becoming and staying dead.