Poker With Dick Cheney

In response to the sound point that anyone who believes that Clinton colluded with the Russians is someone you’d like to play poker with, Warren Terra responded:

Sure, right up to the point where they insist their skip-straight beats your two pair, or their all-red “semi-flush” beats your ace-high, and they get belligerent and kick over the table. Up to that point it’s just been a pleasant evening of cards with a gibbering paranoid loon.

Hogan had the same idea I had in a follow-up comment, but you young ‘uns gather around and be introduced to a treasure from the early age of the political internets from the regrettably departed Editors:

The Editors: We’ll take three cards.

Dick Cheney: Give me one.

Sounds of cards being placed down, dealt, retrieved, and rearranged in
hand. Non-commital noises, puffing of cigars.

TE: Fifty bucks.

DC: I’m in. Show ’em.

TE: Two pair, sevens and fives.

DC: Not good enough.

TE: What do you have?

DC: Better than that, that’s for sure. Pay up.

TE: Can you show us your cards?

DC: Sure. One of them’s a six.

TE: You need to show all your cards. That’s the way the game is played.

Colin Powell: Ladies and gentlemen. We have accumulated overwhelming
evidence that Mr. Cheney’s poker hand is far, far better than two pair.
Note this satellite photo, taken three minutes ago when The Editors
went to get more chips. In it we clearly see the back sides of five
playing cards, arranged in a poker hand. Defector reports have assured
us that Mr. Cheney’s hand was already well advanced at this stage.
Later, Mr. Cheney drew only one card. Why only one card? Would a man
without a strong hand choose only one card? We are absolutely convinced
that Mr. Cheney has at least a full house.

Tim Russert: Wow. Colin Powell really hit a homerun for the
Administration right there. A very powerful performance. My dad played
a lot of poker in World War 2, and he taught me many things about life.
Read my book.

[…]

DC: We will show you our cards after we have collected the pot. It is
important that things be done in this order, otherwise the foundation
of our entire poker game will be destroyed.

TE: We aren’t sure …

DC: Very good. And here are my cards. A straight flush.

Judith Miller: Dick Cheney has revealed a straight flush, confirming
his pre-collection claims about beating two pair.

TE: Those cards are of different suits. It’s not a flush.

Mark Steyn: When will it end? Now liberal critics complain that Dick
Cheney’s cards are not all the same suit. Naturally, these are the same
liberals who are always whining about a lack of diversity in higher
education. It seems like segregation is OK with these liberals, as long
as it damages Republicans.

MD: DRUDGE REPORT EXCLUSIVE
MUST CREDIT THE DRUDGE REPORT
A witness has come forward claiming that The Editors engage in racial
profiling in blog-linking. Developing …

TE: Wait! It’s not even a straight! You’ve got a eight and ten of
hearts, a six of clubs, and the seven and five of diamonds. You have a
ten high. That’s nothing.

Sean Hannity: Well, well, well. In another sign of liberal desperation,
liberals now complain that a ten high is “nothing”. Does ten equal zero
in liberal mathematics? That would explain a lot.

Robert Novak: It’s a perfectly valid poker hand. Apparently, liberals
have never heard of a “skip straight”. It’s a kind of straight, just
with one card missing. But if you skip around the missing nine, it’s a
straight.

Alan Colmes: Mother says I mustn’t play poker.

TE: There is no such thing as a “skip straight”.

Brit Hume: It seems like some people are still playing poker like it’s
September 10th. Back then, you needed to have all your cards in order
to claim a straight. But, as we learned on that day, sometimes you
won’t have perfect knowledge. Sometimes you have to learn to connect
the dots, and see the patterns which are not visible to superficial
analysis of the type favored by the CIA and the State Department. Dick
Cheney’s skip straight is a winning poker hand for the post-9/11 world.

Rush Limbaugh: Do The Editors have two pairs, or a pair of twos? First
they say one thing, then another. What are they hiding?

Andrew Sullivan: Dick Cheney never said he had a straight. He was very
careful about this. His cards can form many different hands. None of
these hands alone can beat a pair of twos; but, taken together, the
combination of all possible hands presents a more compelling case for
taking the pot than simply screaming “Pair of twos! Pair of twos!” as
unprincipled liberal critics of the Vice President so often do.

Trust me — it’s all this good.

Fortunately, the media learned their lesson, and never took Republican snipe hunts at face value with catastrophic results again.