scalia, cheney, whittington, and rove

I promised you earlier that i'd dig into the depths of my memory for a story related to the irresponsible speculation that Cheney et al were busy fornicating on the quail fish-barrel farm...

Cast your mind back two years ago:

"The pair (Scalia & Cheney) arrived Jan. 5 (04) on Gulfstream jets and were guests of Wallace Carline, the owner of Diamond Services Corp., an oil services company in Amelia, La. The Associated Press in Morgan City, La., reported the trip on the day the vice president and his entourage departed.

"They asked us not to bring cameras out there," said Sheriff David Naquin, who serves St. Mary Parish, about 90 miles southwest of New Orleans, referring to the group's request for privacy. "The vice president and the justice were there for a relaxing trip, so we backed off."

While the local police were told about Cheney's trip shortly before his arrival, they were told to keep it a secret, Naquin said." (link)

fair enough.

Now let's switch to the LATimes Feb 5, 04:

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia traveled as an official guest of Vice President Dick Cheney on a small government jet that served as Air Force Two when the pair came here last month to hunt ducks.
[snip]
Ken Perry, who runs the Perry Flying Center at the Harry P. Williams Airport, said Secret Service agents were there in November to study security plans for the upcoming trip.
[snip]
Perry and St. Mary Parish Sheriff David Naquin said that on the morning of Jan. 5, a large security contingent was in place -- two Black Hawk air combat rescue helicopters, a line of armored sport utility vehicles and a ring of federal agents and sheriff's deputies who set up a security perimeter. The area was declared a no-fly zone for other aircraft.
It was raining when the two blue-and-white jets, with the U.S. flag on their tails and the fuselages clearly marked "United States of America," appeared under the clouds. Perry said the planes radioed that "Air Force Two was on its approach." Perry said Cheney was among the first to deplane, followed by Scalia and a young woman who was identified to Perry as one of the justice's daughters.
Both Perry and Naquin said there were orders prohibiting photographs of those who exited the planes and climbed into the motorcade. But two days later, Cheney returned to the airport without Scalia, and photographs were allowed. Perry and Naquin said the vice president happily posed with them for photos at the Patterson airport.
Scalia stayed on to hunt for a few more days, the sheriff said, but local officials said it was unclear how he returned to Washington. (link)

Fast forward six weeks - this from the Legal Times (and elsewhere) 03-19-2004:

"Cheney accepted the invitation last summer and offered to let Scalia join him on the flight down aboard a government jet. Scalia said one of his sons and a son-in-law also joined the trip -- not his daughter, as some press accounts had reported."

ok - so either a) the men in Scalia's family look like women, regardless of whether they are related or not, or b) there was an unidentified young woman on the trip. Which is it, Big Tony?

and if we wanna ramp up the icky factor, this from the harvard crimson:

"But Scalia said his personal views on social issues have no bearing on his courtroom decisions.

“I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged,” Scalia said."

and just to gratuitously ratchet up the ickiness a little further:

"Justice Antonin Scalia got more than he bargained for when he accepted the NYU Annual Survey of American Law's invitation to engage students in a Q&A session. Randomly selected to attend the limited-seating and closed-to-the-press event, NYU law school student Eric Berndt asked Scalia to explain his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 Supreme Court case that overturned Bowers v. Hardwick and struck down the nation's sodomy laws. Not satisfied with Scalia's answer, Berndt asked the Justice, "Do you sodomize your wife?" Scalia demurred..." (link)

think about all those icky things, and then consider all the questions that josh and FDL are asking about the trajectory of the shot, and how the experts seem to think that cheney was a lot closer to 78 year-old lawyer, Mr. Whittington, than the 30 yards that they are claiming, and how many can't understand how the shot penetrated 2 or 3 layers of clothing, not to mention the case of the disappearing 3rd hunter, Pamela Willeford - and then go have a shower - and stop asking yourself whether cheney was arguing with Whittington about who would be on top - or maybe Whittington used the last of the amyl...

oops - before you go wash, Arianna wants to plant icky thoughts in your mind about Karl Rove in the nudey.
arianna:

"But back to the Boy Genius, who has another, even more interesting, connection to Katherine Armstrong and the Cheney shooting: his alleged long-running affair with her business partner, Karen Johnson.

Armstrong and Johnson are lobbyists who have managed to score some lucrative assignments lobbying the Bush administration, including a successful effort at getting the Dept. of Agricultural to make a deal with their client Prionic, a drug company that makes tests for mad cow disease.

Johnson and Rove have long been the subject of gossip and raised-eyebrows deep in the heart of Texas. "For years," a Lone Star State source told me, "it's been an article of faith in Austin that Karen and Karl are an item, and that their affair helped Karen land some plum appointments and clients."

So take the claims that the Bush and Cheney camps are at odds over the shooting with a grain of salt. Karl Rove's fingerprints are all over this story. And perhaps a bit of his DNA as well."

ewwwwwwwwww.