An Impassioned Plea for Gun (Metaphor) Control

Check out the headline and lede of this article by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post (who was arrested earlier this morning by Wonkette’s Capitol Fashion Police; but we sent him a Valentine’s Day card to make up for it):

Or take a look at the following excerpt from this Time.com article:

“He’s very tough,” James R. Huffines, chairman of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas System, and a 25-year friend of Whittington, told TIME. “He’s a real tenacious competitor in everything he does. I hate to use this pun, but he really is a straight shooter in all sense of the word, with a real sense of right and wrong for the taxpayers.”

People, please: In discussing the Cheney hunting accident, can we stop with all the repetitive and tortured shooting metaphors? And now that Harry Whittington has taken a turn for the worse, as we just discussed, the need to avoid gun puns has only intensified.

(Okay, fine, you’ve called our bluff: we’re not sure that we really mean this. So if we indulge in the occasional shooting metaphor ourselves, especially if Mr. Whittington pulls through this okay, please don’t accuse us of hypocrisy.)

McClellan Takes Aim at Cheney [WP]
The Man Who Dick Cheney Shot [Time]

READ MORE: Media, bad puns, birdshot, buckshot, dana milbank, dick cheney, guns, harry whittington, heart attacks, hunting accidents, quail hunting mishaps, time, unfortunate metaphors, washington post

BREAKING: Harry Whittington Suffers Heart Attack; Joke Moratorium Instituted

UPDATE: Bumped to stem the flow of emails. No, he’s not dead, and there’s no way in hell Cheney will be charged with anything if that changes.

This just in:

The 78-year-old lawyer who was shot by Vice President Dick Cheney in a hunting accident has some birdshot lodged in his heart and he had a “minor heart attack,” a hospital official said Tuesday. Peter Banko, the hospital administrator at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial, said Harry Whittington had the heart attack early Tuesday while being evaluated.

Whittington has been moved back to the intensive care unit as a result of this heart attack. The news is probably very worrisome to Dick Cheney — who, of course, knows a thing or two about heart attacks…

Here at Wonkette, we feel like we have a little quail egg on our faces. We opined that it was silly and lurid for the media to be so obsessively interested in how much ammunition would be left unremoved in Whittington’s body. But it was this unremoved ammunition that gave rise to the heart attack, by moving around inside Whittington’s body and lodging into part of his heart.

A moratorium on all jokes related to the Cheney shooting has been instituted — subject, however, to purchasing a $7 permit for the privilege.

Hunter Shot By Cheney Has Heart Attack [WP]

Earlier: Hospital Briefing: The Cheney Shooting

READ MORE: birdshot, breaking, buckshot, dick cheney, guns, harry whittington, hunting accidents, quail hunting mishaps, quails, top

Ain’t Nothin’ Worse Than Getting Metaphorically Shot In the Face

“Today, as White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan picked buckshot out of his own hide…”
-Slate

“The Scott McClellan briefing was truly something to behold. The guy is still picking buckshot out of his backside.”
-Howard Kurtz

“As neither President Bush nor Cheney spoke publicly about the accident yesterday, it fell to White House spokesman Scott McClellan to suffer the media equivalent of birdshot.”
-Post Style

The thing about the “media equivalent of birdshot” is it’s much less likely to necessitate immediate medical attention and exploratory surgery. But, uh, other than that, great metaphor, guys.

Cheney’s Bad Aim [Slate]
After Cheney’s Shooting Incident, Time to Unload [WP]
Monumental Misfire [WP]

READ MORE: birdshot, buckshot, dick cheney, guns, hunting accidents, poorly thought out metaphors, press briefings, scott mcclellan