Month: February 2006

Genius Over Genius

by digby

The New York Times

Should the composer Richard Einhorn’s “Voices of Light” be heard as an oratorio that accompanies the 1928 silent film classic “The Passion of Joan of Arc”? Or is it the film, by the Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer, that accompanies Mr. Einhorn’s 80-minute musical work?

That is the question raised by Mr. Einhorn’s ambitious score. In any event, the audience that packed the Winter Garden in Lower Manhattan on Thursday night for a free performance seemed too swept away by “Voices of Light” to care about its category.

Presented as part of the World Financial Center’s Arts + Events series, “Voices of Light” brought together the Ensemble Sospeso, a contemporary-music group beefed up here to an orchestra of 37, the New Amsterdam Singers, four fine vocal soloists, and Anonymous 4, the officially disbanded early-music vocal quartet, which reunited for this performance. As intended, Mr. Einhorn’s work was performed while the film that inspired it was screened.

“Voices of Light” has been performed more than 100 times around the world over the last 10 years, providing a nice income source for Mr. Einhorn, who has also been a record producer. If nothing else, the composer deserves thanks for introducing new audiences to Dreyer’s masterpiece, which was nearly lost.

Shortly after its premiere, the film was destroyed in a fire. Though shattered, Dreyer reconstructed an acceptable version using negatives from outtakes. Incredibly, the replacement film was lost in a second fire. For decades the work was known only through various bastardized versions. Then, in 1981, as Mr. Einhorn explained to the audience, an intact copy of the original film was discovered in a janitor’s closet in a mental hospital in Oslo. When Mr. Einhorn saw this wonderfully restored print, he was moved to compose his score.

“Voices of Light” has a libretto of Latin and French texts assembled by Mr. Einhorn. Anonymous 4 sing quotations of Joan’s words from the transcript of her trial for blasphemy in 1431. The chorus and soloists sing a patchwork of writings from medieval mystics, mostly women. Mr. Einhorn’s sensitive score deftly shifts styles from evocations of neomedieval counterpoint to wistful modal murmurings over droning pedal tones, from bursts of Minimalistic repetitions to moments of piercing modern harmony.

While never getting in the way, the music heightens the impact of this pathbreaking film, which tells the story of Joan’s trial at the hands of French clerics who supported the occupying English forces in 15th-century France. Most of the characters are shot in discomfiting close-ups. You see the faces of officious and accusing priests, with warts, creviced skin, bad teeth and bulbous noses. You are riveted by the face of Joan (Renée Maria Falconetti), which conveys an eerie mix of wide-eyed fear and delirious elation.

David Hattner conducted a calmly authoritative performance that featured Susan Narucki (soprano), Janice Meyerson (mezzo-soprano), Mark Bleeke (tenor) and Kevin Deas (bass) as the vocal soloists. The score can be heard on a Sony Classical CD. But ideally this music should be experienced as a live complement to Dreyer’s stunning film.

The performance was taped for broadcast on the WNYC-FM (93.9) show “New Sounds” on March 2.

I thought you all should see this because I imagine most of you don’t know that the brilliant “tristero” is also the brilliant Richard Einhorn.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to see this film on DVD, accompanied by Richard’s amazing score, then I urge you to get it. It’s not like any silent film you’ve ever seen — and of course it’s not actually silent. The score speaks more eloquently than any dialog short of Shakespeare could match.

The film and score are great artistic achievements, but they are also extremely interesting for their sociological insight. Based as it is on the transcripts of Joan’s trial for heresy, I never thought this film would have such resonance to events in my own lifetime — but it does. Same as it ever was.

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“Insane”

by digby

Blogger ate the comments below, so I’m going to post this in response to those who felt I had gone “insane” and they would never read this blog again because I said “Bill Clinton was the best Republican president in my lifetime.”

First of all, it was not meant as a slur. Perhaps I should have added that he was also the best Democratic president in my lifetime, which he was, but that was not my point. I’m a great fan of Clinton’s and voted for him happily both times.

“Republicanism” is not inherently evil. Before we became ridiculously polarized by the right wing ideologues, it was common to split tickets in this country. I’ve done it myself a time or two and I consider myself to be a hard core liberal. And there were times that if forced to vote for certain Democrats back in the day there’s no way I could have done it. A whole bunch of racist assholes used to be Democrats. The lablels are only useful up to a point.

The fact is that Bill Clinton governed in the only way he could with an out of control GOP congress and a hostile press: as a moderate centrist. All successful presidents pragmatically survey the political terrain and move forward the best way they can and Clinton was admirably successful at getting things done through a centrist triangulation strategy. I’m not criticizing him for it. I’m amazed that the man was able to pass any legislation at all. It’s a testament to his gifts that his presidency wasn’t a total failure considering what he had to work with.

I’m a Democrat and always have been. To call me a Naderite is absurd. But in my lifetime Republicanism wasn’t always a dirty word, which is why I always couch my extreme criticism with the words “modern Republicans.” Looking back, Dwight Eisenhower was a good president who moved this country forward in ways that would make any modern progressive proud. That tradition of Republicanism is good for this country. I only wish we had some today. It is in that sense that I called Bill Clinton the best Republican president in my lifetime.

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Blogger ate comments again. Sorry.

Political Religion

by digby

Following up on my earlier post, I just realized that Andrew Sullivan entitled his piece “Religious Left” which is very interesting. This latest dialog began with Glenn Greenwald’s great post earlier this week in which he proclaimed modern Republicanism a Bush cult. It was widely read and discussed on the right as well as the left blogopshere. I disagreed a little bit with Glenn’s analysis and called it a Republican Authoritarian Cult because I can already see beginning to detach from Bush and prepare the ground for whoever the next object of their authoritarian passion turns out to be.

The other day Elizabeth Bumiller did an article on Bruce Bartlett, who was portrayed as being “out in the cold;”

What happens if you’re a Republican commentator and you write a book critical of President George W. Bush that gets you fired from your job at a conservative think tank?

For starters, no other conservative institution rushes in with an offer for your superb analytical skills.

“Nobody will touch me,” said Bruce Bartlett, the author of the forthcoming “Impostor: Why George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy.” He added, “I think I’m just kind of radioactive at the moment.”

Bartlett, a domestic policy aide at the White House in the Reagan administration and a deputy assistant Treasury secretary under the first President Bush, talked last week at his suburban Washington home about his dismissal, his book and a growing disquiet among conservatives about Bush.

Although “Impostor” is flamboyant in its anti-Bush sentiments – on the first page Bartlett calls Bush a “pretend conservative” and compares him to Richard M. Nixon, “a man who used the right to pursue his agenda” – its basic message reflects the frustration of many conservatives who say that Bush has been on a five-year government spending binge. Like them, Bartlett is particularly upset about Bush’s Medicare prescription drug plan, which is expected to cost more than $700 billion over the next decade.

He is unhappy, too, with the president’s education and campaign finance bills and his proposal to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, which many Republicans call a dressed-up amnesty plan. The book, to be published by Doubleday on Feb. 28, also criticizes the White House for “an anti-intellectual distrust of facts and analysis” and an obsession with secrecy.

“The Clinton people were vastly more open and easier to deal with and, quite frankly, a lot better on the issues,” Bartlett said in the interview, in the kitchen of his pared-down modern house on a street of big new homes in Great Falls. Bartlett hastened to add that although he admired Clinton’s economic policies, that did not mean he had changed sides.

“I haven’t switched to the Democratic Party,” he said. “I wrote this for Republicans.”

Bartlet’s true apostasy is in saying that Clinton was better on the issues. (I certainly would agree that Clinton was the best Republican president of my lifetime.) As for the rest of his criticsm, he’s just laying the groundwork for the eventual purge of Bushism — a purge that is already gaining steam.

Bill Schneider had this report today on CNN:

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Cracks are beginning to appear in President Bush’s conservative base. One leading conservative characterizes the view of Bush this way.

DAVID KEENE, AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE UNION: We love the guy, but…

SCHNEIDER: But what? Well, consider this. Nearly half of self- described conservatives say President Bush has done something to make them angry. Like what? Many conservatives have problems with the Bush administration’s expansive view of government. They’re outraged by the deficit.

REP. MIKE PENCE (R), INDIANA: It’s simply morally wrong for us to allow the expansion of government and pass that bill along to our children and grandchildren.

SCHNEIDER: This week, an all-Republican congressional committee examining the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina issued a scathingly critical report. REP. TOM DAVIS (R), VIRGINIA: The president or the secretary or Andy Card or someone who’d say, “Do you have everything you need?” And he’d say yes. But there was no supervision. And they were just not engaged.

SCHNEIDER: President Bush’s immigration policies have angered many conservatives.

REP. TOM TANCREDO (R), COLORADO: And if the president of the United States really wanted to, he could secure the border tomorrow.

SCHNEIDER: Some conservatives are asking, should the U.S. be engaged in nation building in Iraq?

KEENE: Part of the base belief of conservatives is that the people in Washington have neither the confidence nor the ability to tell the people of Peoria, Illinois, how to order their lives. It therefore sort of seems inconsistent to say that, “Well, we may not be able to do that, but we do know how to organize societies halfway across the globe.”

George W Bush has won two elections with the unquestioning support of conservatives. In his first term he made it quite obvious that he was not a conservative in any sense that I understood conservative. From out of control spending to federalizing education to nation building and messianic foreign policy, he has simply not been conservative by any common definition of the term. None of that stopped conservatives from virtually worshipping the man. It is only now that he has become unpopular and his policies are failing that his brand of conservatism is being criticized on the right. And he’s being criticized for being

George W. Bush will not achieve a place in the Republican pantheon. Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. (And a conservative can only fail because he is too liberal.)

Dave Neiwert chimed in on this discussion yesterday and wrote a very intriguing post in which he posits that the modern Republican party might more aptly be called a political religion, which, as it happens, is an acknowledged sociological designation. He writes:

I wonder if there isn’t another way of framing this that can help progressives get a handle on what we’re dealing with. Particularly, I wonder if it wouldn’t help to think of the discrete conservative movement as a political religion.

Here’s the Wikepedia entry, which is actually rather accurate on the subject:

In the terminology of some scholars working in sociology, a political religion is a political ideology with cultural and political power equivalent to those of a religion, and often having many sociological and ideological similarities with religion. Quintessential examples are Marxism and Nazism, but totalitarianism is not a requirement (for example neo-liberalism can be analysed as a political religion).

… The term political religion is a sociological one, drawing on the sociological aspects of religion which can be often be found in certain secular ideologies. A political religion occupies much the same psychological and sociological space as a theistic religion, and as a result it often displaces or coopts existing religious organisations and beliefs; this is described as a “sacralisation” of politics. However, although a political religion may coopt existing religious structures or symbolism, it does not itself have any independent spiritual or theocratic elements – it is essentially secular, using religion only for political purposes, if it does not reject religious faith outright.

Obviously, this movement embraces religious faith outright, which may give it certain advantages over more secular political religions, since it so readily taps into ordinary people’s deeply held beliefs and exploits them.

Nonetheless, when we begin to run down the various aspects of political religions, the resemblance becomes even sharper:

Key memetic qualities often (not all are always strongly present) shared by religion (particularly cults) and political religion include:

Structural

— differentiation between self and other, and demonisation of other (in theistic religion, the differentiation usually depends on adherence to certain dogmas and social behaviours; in political religion, differentiation may be on grounds such as race, class, or nationality instead)

— a charismatic figurehead, with messianic tendencies; if figurehead is deceased, powerful successors;

— strong, hierarchical organisational structures

— a desire to control education, in order to ensure the security of the system

Belief

— a coherent belief system for imposing symbolic meaning on the external world, with an emphasis on security through purity;

— an intolerance of other ideologies of the same type

— a degree of utopianism and the aim of radically transforming society into an end-state (an end of history)

— the belief that the ideology is in some way natural or obvious, so that (at least for certain groups of people) those who reject it are in some way “blind”

— a genuine desire on the part of individuals to convert others to the cause

— a willingness to place ends over means — in particular, a willingness to use violence

— fatalism — a belief that the ideology will inevitably triumph in the end

David Brooks says that the left is Stalinist. I assume that’s what Sullivan’s title refers to as well. Communism is often considered a secular religion, although that clearly underestimates the huge power of state coercion. If the American left is Stalinist, it certainly has been extremely ineffective. After all, conservatism now dominates all three branches of government. And I can’t help but find this argument amusing considering that the primary critique of Democrats is that we have no convictions and are constantly fighting amongst ourselves. We are remarkably undisciplined totalitarians.

In one way both parties share the same religion: an all-American obsession with winning. In this I actually envy the right. When they fail, as everyone inevitably does at times, they don’t lose their faith. Indeed, failure actually reinforces it.
Liberals, on the other hand, have nothing like that. We hate our leaders for failing us. It’s a personal thing — as if we are in a bad marriage and we have lost all respect for our partners. But then that’s how most Americans are these days. You are a winner or a loser and nobody wants to be associated with a loser. The Republicans are smart enough to rid themselves of failure by always being able to convince themselves that the failure had nothing to do with their belief system. It must be very nice to live in a world in which you can never, ever be wrong.

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Haters vs Haters

by digby

This week, the issue of which side of the political spectrum is more hateful is back and it’s all I can do to stop myself from crawling back under the covers and staying there. Alleged apostates Andrew Sullivan and Marshall Wittman both tut-tut the barbaric behavior of the left today, saying that it is actually much worse than the unpleasantness they sometimes hear from the right.

I don’t know how many ways you can say this but I’ll try again: hatefulness is not confined to any particular political persuasion — but there is only one side that makes a fucking profit at it.

How many hateful liberal books accusing Republicans of treason, slander, being unhinged or ruining the world are there out there? A couple? Probably. But let’s just say that the market for accusing political opposition of capital crimes, indulging in fantasies about their extinction and musing about how someone should be killed as a way of sending a message to others has leaned heavily on the right wing side of the equation for decades.

Which liberal radio stars are given 250 million dollar contracts to talk every day about how liberals are in cahoots with al Qaeda or indulge in hate-filled rants about hurricane victims and gays? None? Right.

Which liberal TV News nework features an exclusive line-up of outwardly liberal pundits who publicly accuse conservatives of giving aid and comfort to the enemy? None? Check.

Sullivan says this:

Yes, I get homophobic hate mail from the right all the time; and many conservative blogs have blackballed or slimed or smeared me in various ways. But that’s, sadly, what you get for being provocative and opinionated on the web. Bottom line: Hugh Hewitt is not as hateful as Eric Alterman, as any reader can see for themselves.

Now, I’m not going to even bother arguing the relative hatefulness of Eric Alterman and Hugh Hewitt because that’s a false equivalence. Let’s stipulate for the sake of argument that Eric Alterman is hateful. As hateful as a lefty can get. And let’s for the sake of argument assume that he’s more hateful than Hugh Hewitt. I’ll even say, for the sake of argument, that he’s more hateful than all the writers of the Weekly Standard put together. He’s a real son of a bitch.

But can anyone claim with a straight face that he’s more hateful than Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter? Is he more hateful than Michael Savage, Glen Beck, Bill o’Reilly and Sean Hannity? And, more importantly, can anyone claim that he has even a modicum of the influence these people have?

Ann Coulter was just cheered deliriously by the young conservatives assembled at the CPAC convention, where the vice president, the majority leader of the senate and many other powerful leaders of the Republican party were assembled. The same convention features bumper stickers that says things like:

“Happiness is Hillary’s face on a milk carton”

The right wing has developed an entire industry of hate, where people like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are extremely well compensated and feted with adulation and esteem by the most powerful people in the political establishment. When Rush said something so bizarre and outrageous (about the revolting treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib) that even the mainstream media woke up for a moment or two to comment, the National Review raced to defend him:

Rush is one of those rare acquaintances who can be defended against an assault challenging his character without ever knowing the “facts.” We trust his good judgment, his unerring decency, and his fierce loyalty to the country he loves and to the courageous young Americans who defend her.

This is the same man who said:

I said at the conclusion of previous hours — part of me that likes this. And some of you might say, “Rush, that’s horrible. Peace activists taken hostage.” Well, here’s why I like it. I like any time a bunch of leftist feel-good hand-wringers are shown reality.

For the record, notorious leftist hatemonger Eric Alterman has never celebrated the deaths of political rivals. Nor does any leftist hatemonger have a 250 million dollar media contract to celebrate the deaths of his political rivals. I can only assume that this is because there just isn’t enough of a market to support such a thing. Before getting themselves in a tizzy about the hateful left, perhaps Wittman and Sullivan should ask why that might be so.

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Scary Visions

by digby

I’m a little bit under the weather today. I think I’m hallucinating. I just tuned in to MSNBC and thought I saw a segment about ski-jumping called “Tucker In Training” featuring Tucker Carlson in a skin tight purple and yellow ski suit with a pin striped shirt under it.

I must be feverish. That can’t be true, can it?

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H v. H

by tristero

Via Peter Daou’s excellent blog of blogs , which of course includes brilliant original posting of his own, I learned that a rightwing blog posted a link to Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Helen Thomas. I suggest clicking on the mp3 link and taking a listen. The wingers obviously think that Hewitt got the better of Thomas. I truly don’t hear it that way and to my mind, the transcript gives a skewed notion of the way the conversation flowed. But go and judge for yourself.

In any event, I’d like to ask you about one thing, out of many that occur to me, and “who won” is not that central a question to my immediate interest here.

I’d like to suggest that it would be very instructive for liberals and Dems to look at the rhetorical strategies used by Hewitt. I’d like us to trace how a discussion that began with a simple, easy question about what Thomas thought about the vice president shooting a 78 year old man morphed into Hewitt trying to set up a faux confrontation which – while looking obviously contrived to us – was designed to make Hewitt’s dittoheads think that Thomas had been reluctantly forced to concede that Saddam was an evil man.

I think we can all agree that there seems little direct causal connection between the two subjects – unless one gets snarky, and that won’t accomplish much. So really, how did Hewitt move the conversation to that point? What were the strategies he used? What did Thomas do in response? Where did Hewitt mess up? Where did Thomas? How did they recover? What do you think Hewitt’s point was? Did he make that point – not to you, but to his dittoheads?

Most importantly, what can the next person who’s not a card-carrying Bushite learn from this in order to make it next to impossible for Hewitt to find any red meat from using these kinds of cheap tactics? I am certain this is how Hewitt interviews all those he suspects of card-carrying liberalism no matter what the topic. Knowing exactly what he does should suggest numerous ways to make it all but impossible for him to get away with it.

Not that Thomas did poorly; as I said, I think she did quite well. But I’m curious: how can the next person do even better? What would they need to do? Also, please note that I’m NOT suggesting that a single position be changed to accommodate a clown like Hewitt (or any other conservative). I am asking, “How can the next potential victim best turn Hewitt’s cynical game against him?”

I think it is more than possible to do so. This guy is a piker and I think a little bit of careful thought could make him look like a buffoon even to his own followers. Yes, folks: Even if those bias studies are right and people tend to excuse hypocrisy in those they believe in, I think it is more than possible to turn Hugh Hewitt into a joke in the eyes of the people who think he’s right.

And I think it would be a very good idea to do so.

Herbert’s Right. Dammit.

by tristero

I didn’t post my suspicions, but My Smart Spouse will confirm that within minutes of first hearing the news that Cheney had shot a 78 year old man in the face, I suspected there was drinking involved. And unfortunately, I was right. This is a genuine catastrophe, because it means that Bob Herbert’s call for Cheney’s resignation is, as I see it, exactly right. Damn, damn, damn!

If it happens – and I suspect the odds are about 60/40 that it won’t, which are lousy odds – then one of two things will happen. Either Bush will play the GOP loyalty card and we’ll have Vice-President Rice, which will be extremely bad for Democrats for, oh, about the next geologically significant aeon or two. Or if he’s feeling personally insecure, Bush will appoint a far right lunatic in the Santorum mold, confident that no one would dare to impeach Bush even if, somehow, Democrats manage to win majorities in the House and Senate.

Either way, it’s bad news. Not only for Democrats but for the entire country. True, Cheney is bad news already. But never underestimate Bush’s ability to make an awful situation far worse.

On the other hand…I’ve got a thought! Let’s see where this leads:

Maybe Bush could really show he has the country’s best interests at heart and just go for it! I’m saying, if he knows Cheney’s resignation is inevitable, why not go for extra credit and resign along with him? And take the rest of the administration along as well?

Hmm… Well, to be honest, I do see maybe a few practical problems with that – like how to avoid a President Hastert, for one. And the worldwide collapse of confidence in the US, which would probably trigger a worldwide economic panic of mega-tsunami proportions.

Big deal. As George Packer might say, Hey, y’never know, it just might work. Let’s give it a shot. So I say:

Resign, Mr. Cheney, and take the whole damn administration along with you.

(Note to rightwingers and other humor-impaired readers: Everything from “On the other hand” is satire. Anyone caught taking it seriously will be peppered with pixels as soon as I put down my brewski. However, I am quite serious about this: Cheney must resign.)

Hiding From The Breathalyzer

by digby

He was drinking all day:

Cheney said he drank a beer with lunch the day of the shooting, according to his interview. The shooting took place about 5:50 p.m.

Armstrong had previously told CNN that she never saw Cheney or Whittington “drink at all on the day of the shooting until after the accident occurred, when the vice president fixed himself a cocktail back at the house.”

Lee Anne McBride of Cheney’s office referred CNN to a statement from the Kenedy County Sheriff’s Office Monday, which said that the investigation “reveals that there was no alcohol or misconduct involved in the incident.”

That’s not exactly convincing when the secret service “made an appointment” with the sheriff’s office for the next day and ran off the deputy who showed up to interview Cheney at the ranch.

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She’s So Relieved

by digby

It’s just so awful when the kewl kidz have to report icky things about Republicans. It makes everybody feel so darned uncomfortable!

Candy Crowley just said:

“Assuming that nothing else comes up, I suspect this fades.”

Now if Cheney had received fellatio and hidden it from his wife instead of drinking beer while on medication, shooting a man at close range and hiding it from the public, the story might not fade. Not because they would be concerned about his personal sex life, of course. It would be because of what it said about the his character.

On the other hand Jack Cafferty just slammed Cheney for running to his little friends at Fox News for his softball interview. “Talk about seeking a safe haven…”

Of course as one of my readers reminded me, Cheney has officially endorsed FoxNews:

Vice President Cheney endorsed the Fox News Channel during a conference call last night with tens of thousands of Republicans who were gathered across the country to celebrate a National Party for the President Day organized by the Bush-Cheney campaign.

Fox News styles its coverage as “fair and balanced,” but it has a heavy stable of conservative commentators that makes it a favorite around the White House. It is unusual for a president or vice president to single out a commercial enterprise for public praise.

The comment came as Cheney took questions from supporters at 5,245 parties that were held in 50 states to energize grass-roots volunteers building a precinct-by-precinct army for President Bush’s campaign.

“It’s easy to complain about the press — I’ve been doing it for a good part of my career,” Cheney said. “It’s part of what goes with a free society. What I do is try to focus upon those elements of the press that I think do an effective job and try to be accurate in their portrayal of events. For example, I end up spending a lot of time watching Fox News, because they’re more accurate in my experience, in those events that I’m personally involved in, than many of the other outlets.”

Good girl Candy. Bow down to the administration AND your competition.

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“I’m The Guy Who Pulled The Trigger”

by digby

ReddHedd’s doing the play by play of the Fox interview with Cheney. He keeps saying it was the worst day of his life. He’ll never foreget it, blah, blah, blah. Very touching, I’m sure.

In fact he was so upset that he went back to the ranch and sat down for dinner.

But he was very worried while he ate so that’s ok. In fact, he was so busy worrying and eating that he couldn’t even make some calls to DC to have his press office inform the public.

And then there’s this. Jesus, these people are unbelievable.

Krauthamer (from yesterday):

Cheney knew he would get a lot of heat for withholding this, and I think he did the manly thing. He decided, “I’ll take the heat, but I’m going to give my host and my friend, who just got shot, a half a day of reprieve.” Anyway, it’s a minor issue, and to make it into this — I mean, it was a zoo at the White House yesterday. I think the public had the right reaction. It was disproportionate and unseemly.

Well yes. Blow job and semen stains are one thing — the country has a right to know all the details of the president’s sex life. But when the vice president shoots an old man in the face and then covers it up for 24 hours, it’s nobody’s business but his own. All this attention is disproportionate and unseemly.

Update: ReddHedd says:

Hume says Cheney said he had a beer at lunch — that had been hours earlier — no one was drinking. Went back to ranch, took a break for a few hours, and then went back out hunting at 3 pm. Says it was out of his system by the time they went back out. Cheney told Hume he had BBQ and a beer a lunch. (That should be an interesting point of discussion.)

OH mygoodness. I’ve always heard that alcoholand guns do not mix. But certianly a man who had two DUI’s and had his driver’s license suspended — back in the days when you had to be really, really drunk to get popped — now admits to drinking on the day he shot an old man in the face. And he didn’t let law enforcement talk to him until the next day.

I know it’s unseemly to bring this up but shouldn’t there be at least a teeny-tiny little investigation about this now? People are mouldering in jail for decades for drinking and injuring people with guns.

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