It’s 4/1 that he’ll be out by the end of the year

After the weekend shooting incident in Texas in which the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, shot a friend in the face there’s now a market on whether he will hang onto his job.

The Irish-based exchange, Tradesports, has two two betting options – that he’ll resign by June 30th or that he will resign by December 31st. The latest prices converted from the binary basis on which the exchange operates are about 9/1 that a resignation will come by June and 4/1 for the end of December.

Like all these issues the main criticism is not about the incident itself but about the V-P’s actions afterwards. For the first the world heard about the accident came in a posting on a local web-site 24 hours later.

The suggestion that Cheney was trying to cover up the incident is the most damaging and this 24 hour gap is going to take some explaining.

Dick Cheney has accepted the blame for shooting Harry Whittington, 78, a Texan lawyer, in an interview with the Murdoch-owned Fox News. “You can’t blame anyone else. I’m the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend,” he said.

Is it a good bet? Hard to say but those close to George Bush have a habit of surviving even the most difficult situations.

NOTE: The picture on this article has been changed.

Mike Smithson