One of my favorite expressions is "Lord love a duck." Anybody who knows me personally will attest that I say this on all manner of occasions. It is part of my regular arsenal of irritating mannerisms.

I picked up the expression many years ago and why it stuck is something of a mystery. In part, I think it is because it saves me from using saltier language that would bring a blush to maiden cheeks, in the unlikely event I should meet any maidens. At the same time, it endears me to the duck-loving community.

In the interests of full disclosure, my wish that ducks be loved does not extend to resisting duck a l'orange when it appears on a menu. Of course, that is a French dish, and I theorize that the duck either surrendered voluntarily or else was existentially minded enough not to care. Regular ducks, however, are safe from me.

Vice President Dick Cheney is not of like mind. Lord, how he loves to shoot ducks and other birds! In December, as we know in the Pittsburgh area, he flew on Air Force Two to Latrobe, where he disembarked to shoot at the nearby Rolling Rock Club. By the time the shooting had stopped that afternoon, it was reported that he had shot 70 ringneck pheasants and an unknown number of mallard ducks.

What had all these birds done to offend him? My guess is that Mr. Cheney believes that ducks and pheasants are actually the al-Qaida air force. It is obvious now that, after 9/11, when he disappeared mysteriously from public view, he was in a secret duck-blind location defending America. As the office of vice president has few duties, only he had the time to search the skies for jihad-crazed mallards.

Indeed, I am sure that had the Viet Cong been ducks, he would have not gotten all those draft deferments during the Vietnam War but would have been the first to volunteer, perhaps for duty in known duck-infested areas such as the Mekong Delta.

So the news that Mr. Cheney had gone duck shooting with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, also last December, should have caught no one by surprise, including the ducks.

Pressed by the Sierra Club (notorious duck lovers) and editorial writers (notorious quackers) to step down from hearing a case that challenged the secrecy of the energy task force that the vice president led, Justice Scalia last week made a loud honking noise in the form of a 21-page memorandum rejecting the idea of recusal.

He wasn't even in the same blind as the vice president, he said, so those of you who think this is a case of the blind leading the blind are confounded.

But the basic reason he rejected any notion of a conflict of interest boils down to the fact that birds of a feather flock together. In other words, if you are a grandee of the Supreme Court, or a vice president of the United States, you naturally make friends in the same social class.

It was ever thus, as Justice Scalia's memorandum made clear. For example, Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson "played poker with President Truman." (I wonder if Truman's buck always stayed with him, as he promised.)

Unfortunately for my biases, it is very hard to argue against this description of high-level chumminess. It is true. Sadly, this is how the world works. We can't expect our noble lords in government to hang out with regular people.

We may suspect that a bird in the hand is worth two for the Bush administration, but, in the face of such supreme logic, our goose is cooked, our duck is plucked.

Still, for a fleeting moment, Justice Scalia broke cover to confirm unwittingly what really goes on in America. Goodbye the illusion of democracy; hello the reality of plutocracy. We common folk are really a hopeless flock. We can ruffle our feathers and raise a ruckus but the boys in the blind have us in their sights. Lord, love us poor ducks.