The Rules of the Game

A Call to Action blog reprints Sidney Blumenthal's Salon article, Shoot first, avoid questions later, aptly subtitled "The White House's secretive reponse to Cheney's misfire cannot be understood apart from the society of Texas royalty." The end of this excellent article says it all:

The curiosities surrounding the vice president's accident have created a contemporary version of "The Rules of the Game" with a Texas twist. In Jean Renoir's 1939 film, politicians and aristocrats mingle at a country house in France over a long weekend, during which a merciless hunt ends with a tragic shooting. Appearing on the eve of World War II, "The Rules of the Game" depicted a hypocritical, ruthless and decadent ruling class that made its own rules and led a society to the edge of catastrophe.

Blumenthal always renders the perfect portrayal of the Bush clan (Cheney, Rove, et. al). Regarding the Cheney shooting spree, the entire article is a must read to capture all of the nuances involved in this episode. As Blumenthal concludes:

Whether or not the exact facts of the case are ever conclusively established, what happened at twilight in the south Texas brush has revealed the hierarchy of power within the Bush White House and the interests of those who wield that power. The surreptitious handling inside the White House of the shooting, moreover, cannot be understood apart from the society of Texas royalty and the ambitions of those, like Cheney and Karl Rove, who aspire to it. None of it is metaphoric.