Bartlett Targets Deadeye Dick

Remember when Dick Cheney shot an old man in the face and then attempted to cover it up by reporting it through the local press? Well, Dan Bartlett wants you to know that that whole cover-up was Dick’s idea demand.

Then there was the time Cheney shot his pal during a hunting accident in Texas."We couldn’t get hold of him for quite a bit of time," Bartlett said."They were strategizing on their own, which as always got me worried. Icalled down there, and I finally get ahold of some of the peopletraveling with him and they kind of laid out their strategy.

" ‘We’re not going to talk about this. We’re going to give it to theCorpus Christi Caller-Times in the morning,’ " Bartlett said. He wasstunned. This little paper couldn’t even find the reporter because itwas the weekend.

"So finally, I said, ‘I have to talk with the vice president directly.I have to intervene in this.’ I get him on the phone. ‘Mr. VicePresident, I know you don’t have any traveling press with you, but weneed to pull together a pool, either get them down there, get you onthe phone with them. We need to work this out.’

"Dead silence." Then: " ‘This is how we’re going to handle it.’

"’Okaaay, Mr. Vice President.’ Hang up the phone and the rest is history," Bartlett recalled.

Then of course, we knew that Cheney was the one behind the cover-up. He seems to be the one behind all the cover-ups in this Administration. Just so you know, though, it wasn’t Dan Bartlett’s fault.