Target Recognition Poster

Harried securocrats, alarmed by one more threat, are putting up the below remedial education poster in the Old Executive Office Building where the shotgun-wielding, NRA-rule-breaking VP Dick "Lying Sack of Excrement" Cheney has offices. Also it is to be posted in the VP's official residence on Massachusetts Ave NW, and, of course, in a secret location. (Thanks to the new Wonkettes for image.)

What the Slangwhanger-in-Chief heard is that Cheney's already invited Bush along for the next hunt. And Patrick Fitzgerald for the one after that. (Gotta do this stuff in the right order, as anyone who's ever seen The Wrong Box might know...)

Loved the quote from the landowner: "We've all been peppered [with shot] a little bit in our lives." The admission by a millionairess gunowner of the inherent unsafety of firearms is astonishing in its casualness, as well as its divorce from any notion that public health and safety policy changes might have once again been proved to be in order on this front. Shooting black people, at least historical even if indefensible. But millionaires!?! That's an issue!

UPDATE: Wildly associative Houston Chronicle blogista MeMo secures an interview with the quail in question. And my friendly, local, not-yet-sober, one-eyed Texican reporter friend remarks, "As Robert C. Ruark used to say, 'Always use enough gun.' What was that thing Cheney had, a .410? I usually hunted birds with a 12-gauge. If I'd have shot a lawyer, he'd be dead." I'm amused he noted the victim was a lawyer, whereas I just saw he's a millionaire without caring for the manner of his enrichment.

UP-UPDATE: Tom Toles can't be beat. Ever.

UP-UP-UPDATE: All the late-night comedian jokes are collected here. A sample:

"He is a lawyer and he got shot in the face. But he's a lawyer, he can use his other face. He'll be all right." --Craig Ferguson

"But all kidding aside, and in fairness to Dick Cheney, every five years he has to shed innocent blood or he violates his deal with the devil." --Jimmy Kimmel

"Now, this story certainly has its humorous aspects. ... But it also raises a serious issue, one which I feel very strongly about. ... moms, dads, if you're watching right now, I can't emphasize this enough: Do not let your kids go on hunting trips with the vice president. I don't care what kind of lucrative contracts they're trying to land, or energy regulations they're trying to get lifted -- it's just not worth it." --Jon Stewart

"The Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78- year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Wittington's face." --"Daily Show" correspondent Rob Corddry

LAST UPDATE A demonstration of how disciplined the Administration is at staying on message, regardless of the underlying reality, arrived via my cuzzin the Texican videographer from the the internet, Gawd bless it.

CHENEY SAYS SHOOTING OF FELLOW HUNTER WAS BASED ON FAULTY INTELLIGENCE
Believed Shooting Victim Was Zawahiri, Veep Says

Vice President Dick Cheney revealed today that he shot a fellow hunter while on a quail hunting trip over the weekend because he believed the man was the fugitive terror mastermind Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Mr. Cheney acknowledged that the man he sprayed with pellets on Saturday was not al-Zawahiri but rather Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old millionaire lawyer from Austin, blaming the mix-up on "faulty ntelligence."

"I believed I had credible intelligence that al-Zawahiri had infiltrated my hunting party in disguise with the intent of spraying me with pellets," Mr. Cheney told reporters. "Only after I shot Harry in the face and he shouted 'Cheney, you bastard' did I realize that this intelligence was faulty."

Moments after Mr. Cheney's assault on Mr. Whittington, Mr. al-Zawahiri appeared in a new videotape broadcast on al-Jazeera to announce that he was uninjured in the vice president's attack because, in his words, "I was in Pakistan."

An aide to the vice president said he believed that the American people would believe Mr. Cheney's version of events, but added, "If he was going to shoot any of his cronies right now it's a shame it wasn't Jack Abramoff."

At the White House, President George W. Bush defended his vice president's shooting of a fellow hunter, saying that the attack sent "a strong message to terrorists everywhere."

"The message is, if Dick Cheney is willing to shoot an innocent American citizen at point-blank range, imagine what he'll do to you," Mr. Bush said.

Elsewhere, aviator Steve Fossett completed his three-day journey around the globe, setting a world record for wasting both time and money.

POSITIVELY LAST UPDATE: Don Asmussen's Bad Reporter notes the corporate multimillionaire "liberal media's" failures in covering this momentous story fairly, honestly, or in an unbiassed manner that lets you decide.

ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY LAST UPDATE: Steve Martin at Huffington Post is priceless, incomparable, dead-on, wonderful and has great hair.

''Vice President Dick Cheney, while hunting wild geese in the Rose Garden, accidentally shot President Bush twice, once in the heart and once in the head. 'I didn't really shoot the President twice,' said Cheney. 'The second time I shot him, I was president.'''