Man Shot By Vice President Cheney

I am stunned and appalled by the media coverage of this incident. This story has the potential to provide some of the most entertaining copy of the year yet mainstream reporters, for once caught up in some weird fetish for accuracy and truth, are failing to see the inherent humor in this piece of news. Well, here at The JEP Report, I don’t have these hang-ups and offer you the story the way it SHOULD have been written:

Corpus Christi TX – Vice President Dick Cheney today shot his companion last Saturday after apparently mistaking the prominent Texan attorney for a quail. “Who can blame him?” asked Katharine Anderson, owner of the Anderson ranch, where the vice president was hunting. “I’ve seen the victim and let me tell you, his resemblance to a slow flying game bird is uncanny.”

Early reports of the incident had begun to filter out to the media Sunday evening and initial accounts of the event were filled with confusion and contradiction. At one point, the vice president had been placed under arrest for attempted murder after witnesses described Mr. Cheney as screaming, “I’M GONNA POP A CAP IN YO ALIEN A** YOU TWISTED MUTHA****A!!!” just before firing the shot that struck attorney Harry Whittington, 78, in the face and neck. The vice president was released after police learned that witnesses had mistaken the word “avian” for “alien” and deduced that Mr. Cheney’s statement was directed at a quail and not his hunting partner. Vice President Cheney was subjected to a toxicology screening anyway to confirm that he had no hallucinogens in his system as a technical precaution.

“I don’t care if he is the vice-president or not,” declared Sheriff Larry Olivarez. “I heard he used to hunt with Hunter S. Thompson on occasion and I want to be damn sure he didn’t pick up any bad habits from that $#!%?!# lunatic.” Sheriff Olivarez then showed off several scars on his posterior that he claimed were inflicted by Dr. Thompson in 1976. Court records show that Olivarez had indeed accused Thompson of shooting him in the seventies. Thompson initially apologized for the incident and claimed that Olivarez just got caught in the crossfire as the eccentric journalist was single-handedly fending off an extra terrestrial invasion of Woody Creek Colorado. He later retracted that account after the drugs had worn off and said that his shotgun accidentally discharged while he was shaving. Sheriff Olivarez, still obviously disturbed by the incident thirty years after the fact, later broke down in tears while talking to reporters and was hospitalized for post traumatic stress.

After the breakdown of Sheriff Olivarez, the head of the Texas Rangers, Capt. Ray Coffman, took the podium and offered a synopsis of the event. “After kicking up a covey of quail in a patch of tall grass, Mr. Cheney took aim at one of the fleeing birds and followed its path of flight, which caused him to point the barrel of the gun in the direction of Mr. Whittington, who was to the right of the vice president, before squeezing the trigger.”

Senator Ted Kennedy expressed harsh skepticism of Capt. Coffman’s account. “Nobody, but NOBODY, stands to the right of Dick Cheney! It’s an ideological impossibility!” Senator Kennedy has since announced that he will make a motion to appoint a special independent counsel to investigate the incident and appeared confident that President George W. Bush would be found to have somehow been behind it. Oliver Stone and Michael Moore both echoed his sentiment and media reports out of Los Angeles have cited that the men brawled in a Beverly Hills café over optioning film rights to the incident. Eyewitness accounts almost universally allude to Mr. Stone emerging from the melee as the victor. “Yeah, Michael Moore ran from the restaurant screaming like a bitch,” said Spago’s busboy Martin Ramirez on the condition of anonymity (which was refused after learning the little cretin spit in this reporter’s egg salad sandwich).

Harry Whittington is currently reported to be in stable condition and, according to hospital sources, expected to be released once he recants his promises to “stick a snakeskin boot up Squintin’ Dick’s sorry ass” and “go Howard Dean all over him” once he is able to get out of bed. There was no confirmation to the rumors that Harry Whittington telephoned Massachusetts Senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry from his hospital room to inquire about switching his party affiliation.

The White House at first tried to contradict hospital sources in regards to Mr. Whittington’s temperament towards the vice president following the shooting. “In fact, it is my understanding that Mr. Whittington would like to offer the quail involved in the incident to Vice President Cheney as a conciliatory gesture.” said presidential spokesman Scott McClellan during a rare Sunday evening press conference. He was corrected immediately afterwards by an aid standing nearby who said that Mr. Whittington’s enthusiastic desire to “give Squintin’ Dick the bird” was meant in more of a figurative, rather than a literal, way since Harry Whittington did not have possession of the quail that caused the shooting. The bird was wounded by Secret Service agents positioned near Mr. Cheney and taken into custody. When asked about the fowl’s fate, McClellan responded that the quail had been flown first to Guantanamo Bay for interrogation but had since been extradited to Egypt where it was suspected of biologically assaulting Hosni Mubarak’s limousine in 1999, acting upon the nefarious instructions of al Qaeda.

Amnesty International has protested the bird’s extradition. Amnesty alleges that American military personnel probably exhausted all legal means at their disposal to try to make the bird talk and once they realized they were failing, transported it to a nation that regularly employs torture to make terror suspects talk. The White House has vehemently denied those accusations but in response Amnesty International’s allegations, the European Union and United Nations have announced that they would reopen their investigation into whether the US is operating secret prison systems in former Soviet Republics and Middle Eastern countries.

The international implications of the incident have developed rapidly, but not so rapidly as to overshadow the plight of Mr. Whittington among Sunday evening television newsmagazine hosts. From the program “60 Minutes” to the talking heads gracing CNN and Fox News, pundit after pundit offered their opinions on what they believe Mr. Whittington’s future holds for him. As the shooting’s victim is an attorney, it is widely speculated that Mr. Whittington will indeed seek legal recourse against the vice president once he is discharged from his doctor’s care. It is also widely speculated that, as the victim is an attorney, the jury will likely exonerate Mr. Cheney, viewing the incident much less as a malicious crime than believing it to be a public service.

Mr. Cheney becomes the second American vice president to have shot a man while serving in office. On July 11, 1804 Vice President Aaron Burr killed political and personal rival Alexander Hamilton in duel held in Weehauken, New Jersey. “Apparently, Mr. Burr was a much better shot than the current office holder.” declared University of Michigan history professor, Mark DaVinci.