He had a lovely singing voice. Not many people know that.

It was a strange thing seeing the Vice President recieve a standing ovation yesterday after the week he'd had. It was matched by the surreal aspect of watching his victim, Harry Whitington, apologize for all the negative attention Cheney and his family enjoyed after the shooting. Fair enough. All Mr. Whitington had to take was a little bit of birdshot. That's nothing compared to the jokes of the likes of Jay Leno and whitheringly tough questions of Fox News' Brit Hume. Clearly Harry got the better part of the deal.

As usual the GOP can count on the rank-and-file fall in line. Consider this comment by a Cheney Supporter who attended the speech:

"We have somebody from Wyoming who made it to second-in-command, and that's a big deal for us," said Jim Kallgren, manager of the Snake River Pub & Grill, located a few blocks from the Capitol. "Because we get so many negative things [said] about us being so behind the times."

Because having a Veep from Wyoming that shoots a buddy in the face while hunting reflects SO positively on the state. Puh-leeze.

I'm afraid what we have here is just another example of the political tribalism that seems to be such a driving factor in Bush's Republican Party. It's difficult to explain the strong support shown Cheney to anything else. Taking the incident by itself and ignoring the subsequent attempt at cover-up, the BEST one can come away with is that Cheney is a careless hunter. How one can take that past indifference and into the state of righteous indignation on display in Wyoming falls outside of the realm of rational thinking.

My current fun-time reading is "Monstrous Regiment" by Terry Pratchett http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006001315X/sr=8-41/qid=1140305667/ref=sr_1_41/103-2864965-1697418?%5Fencoding=UTF8. If you haven't read Pratchett he's sort of a cross between J.RR. Tolkien, Douglas Adams and Mark Twain. He mixes fantasy, sci-fi and political commentary.

In "Monstrous Regiment" a small squad of recruits consisting in part of a girl disguised as a boy named Polly, a Troll named Carborundum and a vampire named Maladict join up to fight for their country; the fundamentalist duchy of Borogravia. The problem is that Borogravia has little to no economy, little food and pretty much nothing of any value. When they ask their drill instructor why they're at war they get this answer:

"Well, be smart about this: you might not like everything about your country, eh? It might not be the perfect place, but it's ours. You might think we don't have the best laws, but they're ours. The mountains might not be the prettiest ones or the tallest ones but they're ours. We're fighting for what's ours, men!"

Since trolls are kind of slow it takes him until the middle of the night to get it:

"Okay , den, I fink I've worked this out. If people are groophar stupid, then we'll fight for groophar stupidity, 'cos it's our stupidity. And dat's good, yeah?

Several of the squad sat up in the dark, amazed at this.

"I realize I ought to know these things, but what does groophar mean?" said the voice of Maladict in the damp darkness.

"Ah, well... when, right a daddy troll an' a mummy troll--"

"Good, right, yes I think I've got it said Maladict."

Cheney may be a stupid, groophar Vice-President but he's THEIR stupid, groophar Vice President and that's all they really to know.

Oh, and the fact that he's from Wyoming.