Gee whiz, do we love TV! All these years, we didn't know Dick Cheney could aim and shoot a gun at another human being! After all, five deferments for Vietnam. That kinda made one think guns were anathema to the VP. Apparently not. Apparently, the VP likes killing. So much so that if a friend gets between him and his quail, well, look out!
Apparently, guns and pacemakers do not strange bedfellows make. Speaking of bedfellows, can we note that most guys don't go hunting with women who aren't their wives, like the VP and Harry Whittington did with Miz Armstrong and the Swiss Ambassador. To borrow from the Carpetbagger Report, can you imagine the scandal had this been the Clinton Administration? But we digress.
Yes, the case of the gun-toting VP certainly made this week's TV a little more frolicsome, deflecting attention away from the escalating violence over the Mohammed cartoons, the horror of the mudslides in the Philippines, and Oprah's disturbing revelations about just how little has been done to revive and rebuild New Orleans.
But even we were unprepared for Mr. Whittington, his face bruised and full of birdshot, standing before the TV cameras upon his release from the hospital on February 17, some surgery and a heart attack later, apologizing for all the trouble he caused Cheney by getting shot by him.
No need to Swift Boat Whittington — he did it to himself.
You gotta love this Administration. They can spin anything, even the first shooting of another human being by a sitting Vice President since the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton 200 years ago. Of course, that was over honor and integrity.
So why isn't Cheney over in Torino winning some gold for the ill-fated US Olympians? Our favorite late-night bit on Cheney was from the Jimmy Kimmel Live show: TV footage of Michelle Kwan's disastrous series of falls that precipitated her withdrawing from the Olympics. Cut to Kwan sprawled on the ice, then cut to Cheney holding a shotgun. Sweet.
We'll come back to our incredulity over the Cheney-Whittington incident later, with some of our favorite late-night comments so you can keep them for posterity, because we guarantee all trace of this event will disappear faster than you can say Bush-photo-op-with-Jack-Abramoff. Our favorite line about the Cheney incident was from Fox News, which complained that no one was considering Cheney's feelings: "He's a human being, too, after all."
Really? Do we have proof Cheney's a human being? Or is this just another Bush White House/Fox News conspiracy, like WMDs in Iraq? Stay tuned.
Cher lite
Meanwhile, back in Torino, the fur continues to fly. Johnny Weir, the oh-so-queer contender for the Men's Figure Skating medal for the US, blew it in his long program. Perhaps if his outfit hadn't been borrowed from Cher's farewell tour? The top-ranked US male figure-skater, who describes himself as "princessy," stated in a press conference after he decimated his program on the ice, "Who I sleep with doesn't affect what I'm doing on the ice, or what I'm doing in a press conference."
Well, let's hope he [blanks] better than he skated his long program.
But after former figure-skating champion and out queer Rudy Galindo demanded the media out Weir, the question was posed in the press conference. Appropriate? In the queer press, perhaps, but not in Torino. We didn't see that other obvious queen, speed-skater Chad Hedrick, whose "best friend" was crying in the stands when he won the gold, being asked the queer question. But then, he's from Texas, and all the speed-skaters are wearing spandex.
We thought former Olympian Scott Hamilton (who is straight, but looks incredibly queer) pushed it a bit in a conversation with Bob Costas (the best thing at the Olympics; whatever NBC is paying him, it isn't enough) and that other sweetheart, former Olympian Dick Button (he is so kind in his commentary about the skaters; you gotta love him, 50 years since he won gold skating, and he still can feel their pain).
There was no mistaking Hamilton's intent when all three were referring to Weir's persona, and Hamilton noted, "He's saying 'I'm Weir, I'm here.'" Get used to it.
Weir does a very gay performance, and it makes the judges uncomfortable, that's obvious. Princessy is an apt description all around.
We loved Weir's short program, we like his uber-queer persona. We'll enjoy seeing him at nationals later this year, but we really would have liked to see him on the podium in that swan outfit. Move over, Bjork.
Meanwhile, it's the stoner snowboarders who are bringing home the medals for the US team. (But please, stop interviewing them. Except for Shaun White, the Flying Tomato, who has some control of the non-slang English language, they are really too out-there for conversation.) We still aren't sure that skateboarding on snow is a sport, but if it weren't, the US Olympic team wouldn't have much to write home about.
But it isn't just the US team that's suffering. NBC, already the lowest-ranked network in the ratings, has seen the worst ratings of any Olympics ever. We're not sure why. We have found the coverage as interesting as any sports coverage can ever be. Most of the events are fabulous to watch. But if you don't like skates and skis (and our favorite winter sport, luge), well, you are out of luck.
But we found the carping by Bryant Gumble (known for his carping, if anyone remembers him from the Today show) rather brutal. Gumble, who hosts Real Sports on HBO, skewered the Olympics in his closing editorial the other night.
"Count me among those who don't care about them and won't watch them," he asserted. "In fact, I figure that when Thomas Paine said that 'these are the times that try men's souls,' he must've been talking about the start of another Winter Olympics. Because they're so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try, too. Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks, who never heard of skating or skiing. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention. Try not to point out that something's not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what's called a kiss-and-cry area, while some panel of subjective judges decides who won."
The rant went on a bit longer.
We don't hear Gumble complaining about the unbearably tedious Summer Games. The Greeks also didn't have diving, swimming or volleyball on the beach, summer Olympic staples. They might have had discus, but who wants to watch it?
It's difficult for us to imagine that there would be no furor if the color difference at the Summer Games (overwhelmingly black) were pointed out by a white broadcaster. Let's face it: snow and ice are the purview of Europe, Canada, a few American states, Asia and the former Soviet bloc. This does mean that there will be a "paucity of blacks" in the Winter Olympics, just as there aren't any white African runners and jumpers in the Summer Olympics. It's called balance.
Somehow, we don't think Gumble will be complaining about the dearth of white players in the NCAA during March Madness. But we could be wrong.
Didn't Jimmy the Greek get canned for making this kind of statement? Didn't Rush Limbaugh get pilloried and canned when he trounced Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb for getting a pass at being second-rate because he's black? Gumble shouldn't grumble: given the rate at which the Greenland glaciers are melting, there won't be any Winter Games in another 20 years. There won't be any snow and ice.
If Gumble's complaint is really a veiled one about economics, then it should be made about sports across the board, not just the Winter Olympics. Sports are overpaid and overblown and not "real" in any sense of the term. But if Gumble had been watching this week, he would have seen some amazing feats, like the Norwegian cross-country skier who managed to go from 78th place to second after a terrible fall and a broken ski, through sheer determination and skill. Or the Chinese skater who went back on the ice after a violent fall that literally knocked the breath out of her and bloodied her leg; she skated the rest of her pairs program, ending in fourth place. Or the other Chinese pairs skater who ended in fifth place despite just recovering from a year of surgeries for a torn Achilles tendon. Or the Russian team who won pairs even though she had had been slammed head-first into the ice last year by her partner in a competition seen round the world.
These seem to us to be Olympic moments. And frankly, we like seeing a little beauty, strength and excellence, just like the ancient Greeks did.
Back to the bunker
This all brings us full circle to the Cheney biathlon (shoot a quail, shoot an attorney, avoid police and media questioning, run to the bunker, hide, speak exclusively to Fox News and the Wyoming legislature, receive imprimatur of victim and President). Here, in closing, are a few of our favorite comments on the Cheney-Whittington debacle.
We liked David Letterman's Top 10 list of "Excuses Why Cheney Shot Whittington." Our favorites were #9: Wanted to get Iraq mess off the front page; #4: I thought the guy was trying to go "gay cowboy" on me; #3: Excuse? I hit him, didn't I?; and #2: Until Democrats approve Medicare reform, we have to make some tough choices for the elderly.
We also loved Jon Stewart's response to Armstrong saying Whittington had been "pretty well peppered with birdshot." "There you have it: Harry Whittington, seasoned to within an inch of his life."
Jimmy Kimmel quipped: "Luckily, the guy he shot was wearing the body armor that never got shipped to the troops," and, "You know what they say, if Dick Cheney comes out of his hole and shoots an old man in the face, six more weeks of winter."
Finally, our favorite line came from Letterman: "We can't get Bin Laden, but we nailed a 78-year-old attorney."
Stay tuned to the spin and the Olympics.