The Washington Post is reporting that the Sarita, Texas sherriff’s department has closed its investigation of Vice President Dick Cheney. The sheriff’s report supports Cheney’s account of what is, according to the wacko left, the biggest story since Watergate. The Post is also reporting that President Bush is “very satisfied” with Cheney’s explanation.

According to a Rasmussen poll, 57% of Americans believe that the hunting accident was “just one of those very embarrassing things that happens to all of us.” I find that interesting because, as any listener to Sean Hannity “man on the street” interviews, at least 20% of the American population has no idea who Dick Cheney is. My impression is that the only people bent out of shape by the accident are the hardcore, politically-active left wingers — maybe 10% of the population at most. Hat tip to RedState.

The Associated Press is saying that Cheney’s hunting mishap was a disaster. So who did they consult to determine that this was a disaster? Our old buddy Lanny Davis, liar extraordinaire for the Clinton administration.

“It’s a self-created nightmare,” said Lanny Davis, a former Clinton White House troubleshooter who now heads a Washington law practice that specializes in legal crisis management. “Cheney took a non-story, or a minor story, and created a huge negative story because of his stubbornness and his arrogance.”

Meanwhile, and not so surprisingly, Bob Herbert of the New York Times is calling for Cheney to step down in his latest column “Mr. Vice-President, It’s Time To Go.” As you will see, Herbert is of the “Cheney is Hitler” school of writing. I do give him points though for using the phrase “the flaming quagmire of Iraq.” It’s also interesting that ABC has finally ‘fessed up and aired a tape of Saddam and his henchmen talking of using WMDs against the United States. Apparently the brilliant Mr. Herbert believes that Cheney forgot to tell Saddam that he didn’t have any WMDs. Anyway, here’s some spew from Herbert:

There’s a reason Dick Cheney is obsessive about shunning the spotlight. His record is not the kind you want to hold up for intense scrutiny.

More than anyone else, he was fanatical about massaging and distorting the intelligence that plunged us into the flaming quagmire of Iraq. He insisted that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was hot on the trail of nukes. He pounded away at the false suggestion that Iraq was somehow linked to Al Qaeda. And he spread the word that the war he wanted so badly would be a cakewalk.

“I really do believe,” he told Tim Russert, “that we will be greeted as liberators.”

Well, he got his war. And while the nation’s brave young soldiers and marines were bouncing around Iraq in shamefully vulnerable Humvees and other vehicles, dodging bullets, bombs and improvised explosive devices, Mr. Cheney (a gold-medal winner in the acquisition of wartime deferments) felt perfectly comfortable packing his fancy 28-gauge Perazzi shotgun and heading off to Texas with a covey of fat cats to shoot quail.

Matters went haywire, of course, when he shot Mr. Whittington instead.

That was the moment when the legend of the tough, hawkish, take-no-prisoners vice president began morphing into the less-than-heroic image of a reckless, scowling incompetent who mistook his buddy for a bird.

Meanwhile, the left wing wackos are working overtime with conspiracy theories at places like firedoglake and Daily Kos. It’s great entertainment if you have a few minutes.