2-14-06, 9:54 am

There are some great old movies about the upper classes and hunting parties, mostly English but also French. Hounds chasing foxes, elegant men on horseback on the estates of the aristocracy, and of course the bird hunters, shooting away while their grounds people chase poachers. Killing animals is fun for the upper classes, a blood sport that they in some societies trickle down to the masses of people. Sometimes, as in the Agatha Christie stories, people get shot and killed. But all of that is in Europe with its feudal heritage, not in America with its 'middle class democracy,' as its ruling class apologists like to say Often violent criminals start torturing and murdering animals, sociologists have commented for a long time, and then graduate to people. Savagery and cruelty toward animals, warfare against them, is what hunting generally and sport hunting particularly is all about.

Dick Cheney would not have any sympathy with such sociological studies or with either animal rights or any social economic interpretation of human rights. Cheney apparently wounded an upper class Texas Republican lawyer who broke 'protocol' by approaching him from behind during the hunt as he was rotating to kill the quail. The former Halliburton CEO and present VP, an 'experienced hunter,' according to the press, was doing this even though he certainly had the cash and credit to bring home food to his cultural policewoman wife, Lynne.

Unfortunately, quail, deer, and other hunter’s targets can’t qualify for habitat reconstruction aid would provide Halliburton with lucrative contracts to help non-human and non-corporate hunt victims and survivors as the Iraq war has.

All of this took place on a 50,000 acre ranch owned by the Armstrong family in South Texas. Yes, there are people in the United States who own 50,000 acre ranches and they are first among equals Republicans rather than feudal lords, whose 50,000 acres would be called manors or at the very least estates. Those who say that may be a distinction without a difference, Fox News might say, are giving aid and comfort to our enemies, who may be planning to use legions of quail to launch an attack on the Dallas Cowboy football stadium. Katherine Armstrong, who was a member of the hunting party and reported the affair to the local paper, served in the past as ambassador to the UK and probably learned a great deal about hunting parties and the danger of birds there. Did her great family wealth, which has been used to support the Republicans in Texas and nationally, play a role in this and other appointments?

Perish the thought! No doubt her extensive diplomatic experience and knowledge of British history, literature and culture were the decisive factors in her appointment. Certainly the British would be grateful to a representative who would help them leave the world of boiled beef for Texas Barbecue on the high road to freedom and democracy. Also, I am sure that she had earlier seen Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, which hardened her against bleeding heart bird lovers.

But back to Cheney. He may be the first Vice President to shoot someone since Aaron Burr did in Alexander Hamilton in a duel in New Jersey two centuries ago (I vaguely remember that Van Buren’s Vice President, Colonel Richard Johnson, a frontier figure who claimed to have killed the Native American leader, Tecumseh, during the war of 1812, fought a duel or two, but not necessarily in office). Unlike Burr, Cheney was not dueling and had no clear political motives, although after the incident, the press reports, Karl Rove, whose specialty is character assassination, did speak with Ms. Armstrong.

The man Cheney shot, Harry Whittington served the Bush administration when GW was governor of Texas as the head of various state boards, including the state funeral and embalmers board, in much the same way that wealthy men who belonged to aristocrat-gentry factions received patronage plums from royal governors whom they enriched as they enriched themselves during much of the colonial period.

That kind of politics was a major issue in the American revolution, but Texas was a part of the Spanish Empire then, until Mexico followed the path of the American Revolution and overthrew the Spanish Empire and American Settler slaveholders than overthrew Mexican rule as a prelude to the U.S. annexing Texas as a slave state in the name of Manifest destiny. The 'revolution' Texas made against Mexico in 1836 was much more in the tradition of the Confederates failed 'war of independence' in 1861 than it was to the American Revolution

Republicans usually believe that those who learn nothing from history make money from it, so let’s get back to Whittington. The press says that he suffered wounds to the cheek, neck and back, although Cheney visited him in the hospital and he is recovering.

There are really a number of issues here, all of which are far more important than Bush not telling the media about the incident. What would they have done with it anyway except milk it for sensationalism without analysis?

First, there is the issue of animal rights and the savagery of sport hunting, which are important issues to millions of people, since there are many brave progressive people who oppose the hunter-gun culture which rightwing Republicans particularly but politicians in both parties pander to and receive financial backing from. The media wouldn’t touch that issue.

Second, there is the issue of class arrogance. Who has the right to own 50,000 acres of property, making large parts of it into a private preserve for the reactionary rich and famous? In the U.S. such people when they are in politics like to portray themselves as representatives of the 'middle class,' and portray people in the arts, sciences and professions who really did contribute something more than slaughtered cattle and wasted water resources to the society and the world as 'Hollywood liberals,' 'San Francisco Democrats,' that is, people of privilege pretending to be for the people. The events at the Armstrong Manor should give readers an insight into the lifestyles of the reactionary rich and famous and their values of social accountability. But the media that Cheney’s hunting chums denounce as 'liberal' never talks about class issues.

Although Whittington was a loyal supporter of the Bush family in Texas politics, it appears, if the press reports are to be believed, that he was informed of the shooting three hours after it happened and didn’t seem to care too much. Hierarchical class systems do that, even to a 78 year old supporter (in feudal times, vassal would be the appropriate term). Bush is famous for 'sticking by' his disastrous subordinates, starting with Cheney, but this is much more, as it was to aristocrats of old, sticking by himself or sticking to those who are extensions of himself.

Since Whittington is not Howard Dean or Cindy Sheehan we can be reasonably sure that the shooting was an accident. We can also be reasonably sure that from the moment it happened the key issue for all involved, with the possible exception of Whittington, was to protect the Vice President’s reputation.

That’s all that the lime lag in reporting was probably about. If Hugo Chavez had bumped into a U.S. baseball player and injured him during the recent Caribbean World Series games in Venezuela, the administration and media would have been on it in a minute, and intelligence reports connecting the mishap to international terrorism might have been quickly manufactured.

But Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro don’t belong in the Armstrong hunting party in South Texas, not to mention Lopez Obrador, the progressive Mayor of Mexico City widely expected to win Mexico’s presidential election. They aren’t part of the reactionary rich and famous crowd. Dick Cheney is a self-made member.

So, the story was managed. Armstrong made the initial report to a local newspaper who no doubt is wise enough not to say much that would antagonize her and her family. The Secret Service then made a report to the local Sheriff and Cheney was interviewed by a deputy. Dick Cheney won’t have to sweat any possible indictment for the incident. I doubt he will even have to show up in court and present his case as people have to for minor traffic violations. And he will be back for other private hunting parties, killing animals for sport and running interference for the worst policies of the Bush administration.

Maybe the administration didn’t report the story early because they feared media might encourage people to think that if there were serious gun laws and serious restrictions on the hunting of living things Harry Whittington might be in better shape than he is today. Maybe they feared that media might encourage people to think that if society shifted to a predominantly vegetarian diet and the schools taught students both about the cruelty and waste of hunting and both the high financial and health costs of our heavy meat diet, we all would be better off. Maybe they were even worried that the media might encourage people to think that a policy of seriously taxing the corporations and the rich might even lead to some land reform at Armstrong Manor and an end to the sort of hunting parties more associated with actors like James Mason and Michael York than Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Bush administration does see the world in a very strange way.

P.S. As I am finishing this article, I hear on TV that Cheney has been issued a 'warning' for not having the proper stickers for quail hunting. I am sure the quail will see this as an expression of Texas 'compassionate conservatism.'



--Reach Norman Markowitz at pa-letters@politicalaffairs.net.