Shoot! Cheney Bags a Pal and Waits 24 Hours to Report the Incident
Judging by the reaction on the cable news channels over the past few days, Cheney accidentally shooting his Texas hunting buddy Harry Whittington Saturday is a story with legs.
Actually, the 'legs' are that Cheney and the White House waited a day to report the incident. So far, the typical White house excuses are pretty lame, so the question on the billboard is: Why did they wait?
Experienced bird hunters know that you never walk into the path of an upraised rifle during a hunt, yet this is supposedly what Whittington did, just as a flock of quail flew skyward, and then Ole Hair-Trigger Cheney fired buckshot pellets right into his friend's face and chest. Whit is lucky to be alive. But back to the burning question: Why did they wait?
Here's a possible answer: They were all snockered, three-sheets-to-the-wind, juiced to the gills.
Picture this scenario:
Cheney: "Whit, here, put this apple on your head and I'll shoot it off, har, har, har!"
Whit: "But, Dick, you're drunk as a..."
Cheney: "No buts! Thass an order from your president! I mean VICE president, har, har!"
Whit: "But, Dick, you gotta shotgun there, you don't use a shotgun for..."
Cheney: (BOOM!)
Whit: "Ahhhhhhhhh!"
Maybe they wanted to sober Cheney up before they reported the accident, and that's why they released the story on Sunday. Wouldn't do to have a soused Veep being interviewed by the press.
Side note: For over three decades we've heard the right-wingers bellyaching about Ted Kennedy's delay in reporting his car accident on the Chappaquiddick Bridge that cost Mary Jo Kopechne her life. Instead of informing the authorities, he called his staff. Kennedy should have immediately notified the police and the media, but he was afraid of the bad publicity and its impact on his political career.
Fortunately, in this case, Whittington lived, but it appears that Cheney delayed reporting this accident to the media, and the local police were not allowed by the Secret Service to immediately interview Cheney, for precisely the same reasons.
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Media Yowling "I'm Just Wild About Harry (Whittington)"; Veep, Meanwhile, Blasting "Shotgun (Shoot 'Em As They Run Now)" Via Fox News
(Say, wasn't that a hit by Junior and the All-Stars?)
"I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend." That was 'All-Star' Dick Cheney's unapologetic confession to Brit Hume yesterday in an exclusive interview on Fox News, and, as of this writing, it seems that Dick will not be held legally accountable for his shooting accident, except, perhaps, by the media. Strange that after the deceptions 'caught on tape' of Cheney lying about WMD in Iraq, Saddam Hussein's connections to Al-Qaeda, and his involvement with leaking a covert CIA's agent's identity to the media, the thing that has the MSM in a tizzy is this hunting accident story.
In his checkered past, the Tattlesnake once worked as a news director for a small Midwestern radio station; hunting accidents were common in that semi-rural area and the county sheriff had a blotter, open to the public, with the details of each mishap and injuries sustained. The sheriff's police also responded instantly to any accident report, to assure that the victim received medical treatment as soon as possible, and to seize evidence and get statements from witnesses in the event criminal charges were necessary.
Apparently they do things differently down in Texas, where the lackadaisical county sheriff, receiving a report last Saturday of a man injured in an accidental shooting, decided to take his time and made an appointment to interview the shooter Sunday morning; the sheriff back in my radio days would have been afraid the shooter or witnesses would leave the county, tamper with evidence before questioning, or sober up, and he definitely didn't 'make appointments' to investigate suspects. Of course, none of his suspects were the Vice President of the U.S., who, naturally, would have no reason to lie to the sheriff about his involvement in what was then a potential manslaughter case. (Uh huh. Still got that New York bridge for sale?)
The poor old drunken bumpkins back then were frequently charged in accidental shootings; all the way from petty misdemeanor negligent discharging of a firearm all the way up to felonious unintentional manslaughter. Had one of the misbegotten hunters in those days confessed that they had shot someone accidentally, there would have been an investigation, and likely charges of some kind would have been filed.
In Cheney's case, though, there have been no charges, and the extent of the investigation is unknown, since the county sheriff has been hiding from the media. In fact, all we know about this shooting is from Cheney himself; no independent source, save some intimidated doctors, has surfaced to speak about the events last Saturday surrounding the shooting of Harry Whittington. There hasn't even been an 'official story' yet presented, except Cheney's softball interview February 15th with Brit Hume on Fox News, five days after the incident.
Here are some questions regarding what we know so far, in no particular order of importance:
-- In the Fox interview, Cheney said "Nobody was drinking," yet he's admitted to drinking 'a beer' at lunch before the accident. Two things: (1.) Guys in trouble with the law often admit to having consumed only 'a beer' before the incident that got them in trouble, which usually turns out to be a 144-oz. flagon of suds rather than a 12-oz. bottle; (2.) Cheney has all sorts of medical conditions, from heart trouble to phlebitis, so he's no doubt taking a pile of medication; even one 12-oz. beer on top of that stew of chemicals could be enough to seriously impair his judgment -- and his aim. Of course, drinking would explain the delay in reporting the accident; by Sunday morning a breathalyzer would have turned up little alcohol in Cheney's system. (Did the sheriff even do a breathalyzer test, routine in hunting accidents where the shooter has confessed to drinking alcohol?)
-- It's been claimed that Whittington was shot on the right side of his body at 30 yards; how did birdshot travel to his heart which is left of center, and protected by flesh, muscle and rib bone? The force of the blast at that distance would not have driven pellets clear through Whittington's body from the right side to the left, so the angle must have been different than claimed. Why lie about this point? Cheney also said on Fox that Whittington was wearing an orange vest; how crocked do you have to be to not notice a man in a bright orange vest?
-- Why is Whittington being held incommunicado? According to recent reports from the hospital, he is being held in intensive care to 'protect his privacy.' First of all, that's hooey; he could be put in any private room under guard to protect his privacy. Secondly, he could have a brief phone interview with a member of the media and easily confirm his 'old friend' (or 'acquaintance') Dick Cheney's recollection of the accident. If he is, as has been claimed by the hospital, in reasonably good health and talking on the phone to friends, why not clear the air? Of course, if he is much more ill than is being let on, possibly unable to speak at all, it would make sense to keep him secluded from the media. The same with the sheriff; he's a public official and this is a case involving a public servant: Why won't he talk to the media or release any records?
-- Also, according to media reports, Whittington was initially taken to a small hospital 60 miles away from the site of the accident when there were larger, better-equipped hospitals that were closer. Why was this done?
-- Why did Cheney leave it up to a friend without experience with the media to break the story to the tiny Corpus Christi Caller-Times instead of a member of his press office? Was this a display of panic within the Cheney camp, or was it intentional?
-- With media speculation running red hot, why can't someone in the White House come up with a concrete timeline of events and verifiable independent sources? Instead, the details of the case released to the press seem to change daily, and any sources besides Cheney himself are silent. Can these guys really be that arrogant and stupid as to think this will die down before all the questions are answered?
It would be ironic if this hunting accident story led to the downfall of Dick Cheney, just as a 'third-rate burglary' unraveled the Gordian knot of Richard Nixon's corruption and treachery.
Both tales play into who these Dick's are as people; Nixon was the 'Imperial President' who didn't think he was accountable for his illegal actions because he was president -- "when the president does it that means that it is not illegal"; Cheney is the Imperial Vice President who thinks he's CEO of USA Inc. (Bush being merely President), and therefore owes no explanations or apologies to the 'employees' -- i.e. the American citizens who pay his salary -- for anything he does.
In each case, an arrogant and intractable mindset was their undoing, and what Republican, already saddled with the falling fortunes of Bush, wants to run for reelection with the sneering and dictatorial Cheney on his back?
Cheney's popularity before the accident was as low as 19 percent in some polls and this latest dust-up is not likely to improve his standing with the public; the jinky handling of Whittington's shooting may well be the final stroke that ends the public career of neocon insider Cheney, a case that should have been closed when George Bush the Elder was defeated in 1992.
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Why Indeed MSM?
One explanation of why the Mass Media has been getting so hot and bothered over the Cheney shooting story, after years of Dick's intelligence-insulting misdirection, obsessive imperial secrecy, and blatant lying.
"The namesake of this site asks, rhetorically, why now? Why, that is, does the White House press get angry over the administration's time-release approach to the truth, only when it involves the relatively trivial (although not to Counselor Whittington) matter of Trick Shot Cheney?
"There's this psychological theory called displacement. You can look it up.
"A feeling generated by one experience surfaces in another context, because it's safer there than in its originating environment. So, three, four years of being lied to on serious matters boils over at BirdshotGate. The Republicans, whose talk-radio acolytes are screaming "foul" over the White House press corps' sudden burst of anger, now know what it felt like when the Monica story erupted (that was the word of choice back then) on the Clinton Administration. Like this in-your-face shooting, that one embodied a cartoon version of what "everyone" in Washington already knew and/or believed: in the first case, that Clinton was a womanizer, and too clever by half ("I'll finish myself off in the sink, so it's not really sex"), and in this case, that Cheney is a secretive manipulator who would rather shoot the truth than tell it."
-- Harry Shearer, "Why Now?" The Huffington Post, Feb. 14, 2006.
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