Cheney Got His Gun

I know this has nothing to do with crime fiction, except that it involves an armed, dangerous, and quite unlikely character with delusional episodes (he insisted that American invasion forces would be “greeted as liberators” in Iraq in 2003, and back in May 2005 he claimed that Iraqi insurgents were “in the last throes”). But I cannot resist noting the January 2007 “Bum Steer Awards” cover of Texas Monthly magazine. Every year, this much-superior-to-normal publication of its sort pokes fun at politicians, personalities, and news developments that make it clear just how unusual and ludicrous a place the Lone Star State can be. And this year’s “Bum Steer of the Year” award goes to ... Dick Cheney, the rifle-toting, bunker-hiding U.S. veep who, in February, filled a 78-year-old hunting buddy with birdshot. Accidentally, of course. No harm, no fowl, right?

As Texas Monthly remarks in its “Bum Steers” intro, Cheney is “a man who’s a real blast to go hunting with, who this year gave the country (and his friend Harry Whittington) a shot in the arm, among other places. He may be number two in the White House, but to us he’ll always be number one with a bullet. Or a pellet.”

And while you’re laughing over the cover image at the far left, observe also its remarkable resemblance to a famous National Lampoon cover from January 1973, which has been acclaimed by the American Society of Magazine Editors as one of the “top 40 magazine covers of the last 40 years.” At least Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith acknowledges the similarity, writing: “It will shock and disturb you--or maybe it won’t--to learn that there are no original ideas in the magazine business; there are only good, worthwhile, creative riffs on original ideas.”