I knew Aaron Burr, and you sir are no Aaron Burr

I just cannot get enough of hearing the phrase "... after he was shot by the Vice President" on the TV today. I can't help myself, I just start giggling and Pam says, "you're laughing about that again, aren't you?" Indeed I am. She had a great line trying to parse out the story, "so, what?, he turned to look at his friend while his gun was on?" (That was sarcasm, Pam knows guns.) I'm sure we'll hear even more incisive commentary on this incident in the coming days. I can't wait for PETA's statement on CNN.

If you know me, you know I love the Founders, not just because of their great deeds or ideas but also because they were a wild wacky bunch of folks. I've always said I really miss the days when the Vice President was on the lam for shooting the Secretary of Treasury. (Homeland Security disclaimer: not that I harbor any ill will towards John Snow.) Politics was a whole lot more rambunctious then. Dick Cheney has nothing on Aaron Burr.

But he does have Hallibuton and all those scandals and gets to remain a free man while Burr stood trial for treason for his alleged plot to create a new nation out of what is now the American southwest. Maybe they have more in common after all.

Then again, maybe not. Cheney's dropping the F-bomb on the Senate floor pretty much finally laid to rest the illusion of the Senate as a body of great decorum, a tradition credited by many to Burr. Say what you want about Burr, he sure did know how to Chair a meeting.

Final verdict: Cheney may be the bigger slimeball, and if so just barely, but Burr definitely did it with greater panache. The scales are equally grand, but Cheney's scheming seems so mundane in comparison.

Even more cool than the Vice President shooting a man in the woods again is that the victim, Harry Whittington, received immediate top notch care because, after all, Cheney has a medical team with him at all times for his next heart attack. What luck! And, for the rest of his life he gets to tell his grandkids, "yes, I was shot by the Vice President."