The Magpies Misfire And Miss Again.

After frothing frissons of excitement and glee and shameless displays of schadenfreude and millions of gigabytes spent gossiping and chattering away in the blogosphere with the recurring theme of "This time we got 'em!" while weaving complex, criss-crossing, conspiratorial conjectures to create eclectic tapestries that were to be used as nets to throw over and finally capture the elusive Beast (i.e. Vice President Richard Cheney), the bungling Lefty/Antiwar/Bush-Cheney-Hating magpies missed again and managed only to net themselves and thrash wildly about trying to get their credibility disentangled from their own contrivances in the futile attempt to belatedly avoid getting earmarked as mere politically-partisan mischief-makers and compulsive, chronic wolf-criers (too late for that).

Republicus is referring to, of course, the Left's disgraceful reaction to the news that the vice president had sprinkled his buddy--i.e. Mr. Harry Wittington-- with bb's in a quail-hunting accident after the latter abruptly appeared in the line of fire without obligingly yelling out "Marco Polo!" first.

The news broke while the bespattered victim was undergoing medical care, and the magpies that were perched up on the telephone wires ruffling their feathers while waiting for something to happen felt the electronic pulse pass under their scaled feet and they alarmingly flinched and jerked their heads about and towards each other not certain what to do until one caw-cawed and then another automatically caw-cawed back, and then the whole flock commenced with a cacophonic concerto of caw-cawing before flying off en masse with the abrupt hubbub of hundreds of flapping wings beating the air and darkening the sky overhead as they determinedly flew towards destinations unknown (but insisting that everyone follow them).

"What took him so long to tell us, hmmmmm?" a panting, airborne magpie would ask, "For Clinton's Sake, he shot a man with an elephant gun! Pass it on!"

"No, no, it was buckshot! Get the facts straight!"

"Breaking news! He didn't have his hunting license in order! Pass it on!"

"Breaking news! He broke all sorts of hunting protocols! Pass it on!"

"Hey, what if he waited to tell us because he needed to sober up? Pass THAT on!"

"Like Teddy at Chappaquidick?"

"SHUT UP! That was just a blowjob!"

"This is a metaphor for everything they've been doing for years!"

"Yes! Guns! Rashness! Recklessness! Shooting at innocent civilians! Cover-ups! Lies! Lies! LIES!"

"Maybe Whittington knew too much!"

"Oo! He just had a heart-attack! If he dies, that's it! It's manslaughter!"

"OH MY GOD! DICK CHENEY CAN GO TO JAIL FOR THIS! HE'LL HAVE TO RESIGN!"

"It's Quail-Gate!"

"More indictments!"

"Where's Fitz?"

"HAW-HAW-HAW-HAW-HAW-HAW-Haw-haw-haw-hawwww..."

And off they flew, disappearing over the horizon as a spry and resilient--albeit newly-freckled--Mr. Whittington suddenly appeared in public and apologized--to his friend, Vice President Richard Cheney!-- for all the caw-cawing fuss that was created because of the hunting accident.

Yes, to paraphrase one of the late-night comedians, only in Texas can you shoot a lawyer (i.e. Mr. Whittington) in the face and have the lawyer apologize and be done with it!

IT'S DONE.

It was a hunting accident.

The metaphor here worth noting is not the Vice President's unfortunate circumstance representing the overall character and m.o. of the administration, but the magpies' own haphazard, misfiring reaction representing the character and m.o. of the magpies themselves.