The vice-president of the United States of America shot a lawyer friend in a hunting accident, and American comedians and cartoonists are having a field day. The victim is in intensive care after one shotgun pellet provoked a heart attack, and the White House spokesman is making jokes in an official press conference about wearing an orange tie to not get shot by the VP. The authorities announce that Cheney didn't have the required $7 stamp to hunt quail, and he sends them a check for $7 (insert further jokes about the cost of a stamp to shoot lawyers).
Now hunting accidents happen, but I fail to see the humor in the situation. The 78-year old man in intensive care with shotgun pellets in his face and body plus a heart attack is not laughing. But what I find the least funny is how there are obviously two laws for the powerful and for the normal people. You bet that if *you* accidentally shot somebody, you would be grilled a lot more by the sheriff. And if you got caught without a valid hunting licence, you'd get fined a lot more than $7.
I am pretty sure that even if the victim dies, and if the root cause was negligence or recklessness by Cheney, he will get away with nothing worse than a Jay Lenno joke and some biting comments in a newspaper editorial. While if the same accident had happened to somebody poor and black, he'd end up in prison. And that is no laughing matter.
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