For Bill Clinton it was a stain on a blue GAP dress; might Cheney’s Waterloo be an errant spray of birdshot? The way the normally dormant Washington press corps has seized upon this so-called "scandal," you’d think the country’s lifeblood (and this administration’s credibility) flowed through Harry Whittington’s 78-year-old veins. Finally succumbing to pressure from Democrats (Nancy Pelosi demanded Cheney "come clean on what happened in Texas"), the nation’s editorialists, and even fellow Republicans like Ari Fleischer, Dick is going to make a rare public appearance in a few hours on FOX news. Not exactly enemy territory, but give the man a break. He shot a buddy and hasn’t held a press conference in 3 1/2 years.

The folks over at HuffPo have really gone bananas over this one though. Torture proponent Alan Dershowitz hypothesizes that the VP must have been up to something really bad (like drinking and hunting). Bob Cesca repeats Sirius radio’s Alex Bennett’s rumor that Cheney’s missing hours gave the administration time to cover up his own private Lewinsky. It’s like mock trial club meets Weekly World News over there.

The only voice of reason in the lot is Harry Shearer’s Eat the Press which attributes the whole brouhaha to a little "psychological theory called displacement." The lesson the Bush administration might actually learn from all this: Lie about uranium to provoke war (no big deal), don’t report a minor accident for a few hours (get strung up). The next time someone stubs a toe in the White House, I’m sure they’ll convene an emergency meeting of Congress. I suppose politics by proxy is better than no politics at all, but I just want to scream: It’s the war, stupid.