Monday, February 13, 2006

The Most Incredible Thing About Cheney's Shooting


Ok, so the vice president accidentally shot someone while on a hunting outing South of San Antonio, Texas. Accidents happen all the time, right? And besides, it's not like he offed someone during a liquor-store hold-up. So what's all the fuss about you ask? It's simple. It took the Bush administration almost 24 hours to issue any sort of statement about the accidental shooting which occurred 5:30 PM Saturday. The vice president of the United States shoots someone, even accidentally, and all we got was a statement released by the ranch owner, Katharine Armstrong, to a small town newspaper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. It wasn't until Sunday afternoon that Armstrong called the paper. She did not notify the national media or the White House press corps. The vp's office commented thereafter.

In keeping the public and the press in the dark for so long, Cheney's general disdain for average Americans and the media was never more evident. It's incredible to me that he felt it was acceptable to have as the only reporting of the episode a private citizen's tip-off to a local newspaper. That Cheney did not think he owed the public and the press an immediate direct statement and explanation only further demonstrates the secrecy with which this administration operates, and its general belief that it operates above the law. This was a shooting, for craps' sake, involving the vice-president of the Unites States; the person next-in-line for the presidency. It's truly unfathomable how the news was broken, and by whom.

18 comments:

Melinda Pillsbury-Foster said...

Is the rumor that Cheney has asked Bush to go hunting with him fact or fantasy?

Anonymous said...

The more this administration drags it feet in honest and timely reporting of anything concerning them (Bush, Cheney, Rove, Brownie, Chertoff, Rice, etc, etc,) the more it looks like they are dishonest. Or is that an understatement?

Anonymous said...

Same old same old. It's not what happened, but how they handled the release of information about it.

I can never trust them.

Cathy
Michigan

Anonymous said...

As long as Cheney keeps hunting Republicans, it's okay with me. POW! I don't care if it takes him a year to report them as long as his aim is true.

Also, this means that it's unlikely that many of our new Supreme Court justices will join Scalia on Cheney's future outings.

I'm with Alan Simpson. It was the victim's fault. He was sneakin' up on him. I grew up near a woods where people hunted. This kind of incident happened quite often.. okay....it never happened once. I'm sure hunters will totally sign onto the idea that the fault was all with the guy who got shot.

Anonymous said...

What gets me is why Whittington didn't shoot back.

I just love being alive because you just couldn't make this stuff up about the White House and I keep wondering what tomorrow will bring.

Have you had ENOUGH YET?

Anonymous said...

Since we'll tolerate Bush and Cheney we'll willingly forfeit our country to them. For letting them simply take the U.S. from us, we deserve everything they do to us. Killing our kids. Methodically legislating and taxing us farther into poverty. Everything. All of it.

Please, what has gone so wrong with America and with us?

Unknown said...

Why isn't the press corps asking the obvious question; where was Lynne Cheney while Vice was out shooting with another woman? They would be asking if it were Bill Clinton or Gary Hart.

Anonymous said...

Yes, not only did they forceably keep the local authorities AWAY from Cheney until Sunday so he could sober up, they also were probably waiting to see if the man would DIE, seeing as how he was shot in the heart, and suffered a heart attack as soon as he was let out of ICU and had to be put back into Intensive Care.

Anonymous said...

personally, I now look back fondly on the days we read about oral sex and the meaning of the word "is"

does anyone else agree?

Anonymous said...

Agree! I'll take a blow job anytime
over anything these crook do. Besides,
I really doubt they could get a bj.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Agree! I'll take a blow job anytime
over anything these crook do. Besides,
I really doubt they could get a bj.

.

Bush did have his homosexual prostitute Gannon/Guckert visit the White House quite often.

Anonymous said...

The real story is already emerging, if you're willing to do a little digging. Cheney and Whittington went hunting with two women (not their wives), there was some drinking, and Whittington wound up shot. Armstrong didn't see the incident but claimed she had, Cheney refused to be questioned by the Sheriff until the next morning, and a born-again evangelical physician has been downplaying Whittington's injuries since they occurrred.
Neither the press nor law enforcement seems inclined to investigate.

Before the right-wing commenters howl - there's documentation for all of these statements. Let's take them one by one: In addition to Cheney and Whittington, the hunting party included Katherine Armstrong (who was in the car at the time of the shooting: more on that later). After lots of evasive comments that only referred to a "third hunter," we now know her identity: Pamela Willeford, the US Ambassador to Switzerland.

Then there was this Armstrong quote on MSNBC and picked up by Firedoglake (later dutifully scrubbed, but preserved on Google cache): "There may be a beer or two in there," (Armstrong) said, 'but remember not everyone in the party was shooting.'"

Interestingly, Armstrong's playing with words here. She later said that she (Armstrong) hadn't had anything to drink, so at least one of the other three must have been drinking - and the other three were shooting. So while her statement was literally correct ("not everyone ... was shooting"), it gives the false impression that nobody drank and shot.

Then there was this item (courtesy kos):

Armstrong said she saw Cheney's security detail running toward the scene. "The first thing that crossed my mind was he had a heart problem," she told The Associated Press.

In other words, she didn't see the accident. All of her statements, replete with colorful sidebars about getting "peppered pretty good," gave the false impression she was an eyewitness. She wasn't.

And what about Dr. David Blanchard, who made such light of Whittington's injuries? Before the heart attack occurred, Blanchard gave no indication that pellets had entered Whittington's torso or major organs (we now know that at least one other pellet entered his liver). I found an interesting quote. After asserting that spiritual beliefs help people recover more quickly (which studies have suggested may be true), Blanchard said this of people with out of body and near death experiences:

"These people do quite well in their disease processes," he said. "The Lord wasn't quite ready for them yet . . . It makes believers out of them."

It's likely that Blanchard is also the same "Dr. David Blanchard" who is listed as Vice Chairperson of World Hope International, a Christian evangelical aid group.

Blanchard's certainly entitled to his own beliefs, and World Hope International (if he's the same Blanchard) has done some good work, albeit with a proselytizing bent. But most evangelicals in this country are ardent supporters of the Bush/Cheney Administration. This may explain the otherwize puzzling word choices Dr. Blanchard made to play down Whittington's injuries, especially before the heart attack made that more difficult to do.

So was Cheney drinking, and was there anything inappropriate about this hunting party? We don't know, and nobody's investigating. There's reason to be suspicious. We do have the suggestion that drinking was taking place, we have inconsistencies and a pattern of deception in Armstrong's statements, we have a shooting injury that's far more serious than originally claimed ... and a Sheriff's Department and national press that have already proclaimed the VP innocent of all wrongdoing.

I was right to call this Cheney's Chappaquiddick. The parallels get stronger every day. Of course, Chappaquiddick happened almost forty years ago, and Ted Kennedy's turned his personal life around. Cheney's actions happened this weekend. There's reason to be suspicious of the Vice President's behavior, starting with the cover-up itself.

They're trying to spin it as just a badly handled case of press relations, but it's could be a whole lot more than that.

Anonymous said...

From 30 yards w/ a 28 guage? and it did that? Hah..hah...B*S#...15 yds max...he wishes it was 30 yds...

"I'll have what e's drink'n...wha?hunters don't exagermatate"

Anonymous said...

This is just one more example of cheney and bushie thinking they are above the law, I truly believe these fascists will not stop until they have stolen our democracy, and it seems there is still no outrage from the public. Where are our collective cohones? THIS IS HISTORY IN THE MAKING, AMERICA....we need to WAKE UP AND TAKE OUR DEMOCRACY BACK!!!!

CDW said...

I would interpret Cheney's response as fear rather than distain.
It was a child's response to a problem to try and hide what had transpired and to avoid responsibility.
I agree that Cheney has a problematic relationship with the American people. His policies reflect an unhealthy combinbation of paranoia and twisted logic.
However,a man that behaves as he did has little self confidenct and no self respect.
Carol DW
http://resetnow.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

most comments are here because it is linked from www.buzzflash.com

Henceforth this poor chap will be known as "Duck! Cheney"

(message from England, but not a USUKer warcrim.)

Anonymous said...

An accident? Hardly! Deliberate is the only conclusion.

I was a rifle range coach in the marine corp. Trained, experienced shooting is all habit. Pick up a piece, you automatically check to see if its loaded. No one on any firing line at the range, on the line in combat, or a hunting line as for quail ever turns their piece to the left or right over 75 degrees let alone 90 degrees and fires a round off. NEVER!.

Mr Cheney has gone quail hunting 100s of times. Quail break cover and fly out in a star burst pattern so some are always flying towards and through the hunting line. Suddenly after 100s of hunting trips to do a complete 180 degree pivot and fire behing the firing line in violation of all his ingrained and trained habits. BS.

Everyone on a line knows that behind the line is safe. thats why no announcement distracting other shooters when you take a piss, pick up a bird, or reload.

200 shot in the head and shoulder could only mean 15 yards. Trained good ahooters always pick up the target first before squeesing off the round, a ingrained habit. Acquire target, shoot second.

Deliberate is the only possible conclusion. He was almost certainly dirinking, which gave him the dutch courage to Deliberately' shoot Mr. Whittingham.

Why, I don't know what Mr. Whittingham told him. Perhaps asking him to stop the illegal wiretaps. somethiong enraged Cheney, and deliberate hunting accidents are always between old friends.

Cheney is truly a sociopath.

Anonymous said...

It's alot worse than anyone in the media is saying. At least four Bush biographers have committed suicide, a statistical impossibility.

Harry Whittington was not only involved in the FUNERALGATE cover-up in Texas, which had then Governor Bush's Chief of Staff, Joe Allbaugh (appointed after the 2000 election to head FEMA bringing Michael Brown from Edmond, OK. with him) and Attorney General John Cornyn intervening for SCI, Service Corporation Inc. home to not only key Iran-Contra assets (remember that 18 planners of Iran-Contra have been resurrected to Bush's administration including the indicted John Poindexter and Elliot Abrams) , but SCI is also home to Al Gore's former campaign manager, Tony Coelho, a leading offender in the House Post Office scandal (THIS AIN'T REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT...IT PERVASIVE...REMEMBER THAT IRAN CONTRA NEEDED CLINTON'S APPROVAL TO USE BARRY SEAL'S AIRPORT AT MENA, ARKANSAS). SCI was manipulating the funeral industry and has a history in Florida and Texas of dispicable practices. Whittington was also a member of the Texas Department of Correction's Board whose healthcare program had about a $16,000,000 dispute. Prisoner healthcare was split between UT and Texas Tech Medical Schools in Galveston and Lubbock. Ambassasor to Switzerland, land of secret bank accounts, is Pam Willeford, whose husband was appointed to the Dept of Correction's health care commmittee overseeing prison medicine in May, 2000.

So you can see the problem.

The sheriff of Kenedy County deferred to his predecessor, former Sheriff Medellin who lives on Ambassador Armstrong's ranch. Kenedy County like most of the counties in the Nueces Strip, between the Nueces River and Rio Grande, are a moral no man's land. People get very rich from what crosses the grasslands....and it ain't all cattle. It was in Whittington's Goliad County (he has a ranch there on I-35 where his daughter is married to one of the County Constables. The Minute Men recently assembled because of complaints by ranchers that the county is a launch site for smuggling illegal aliens north to Houston up the famous Corridor 69 created by GATT/NAFTA).

Kenedy County is home to the Sarita Kenedy Foundation which has been a focal point of bitter disputes and dark intrigue. The foundation was in the news not long ago when Texas Catholic Bishops were angry over the use of Foundation funds, which were susposed to spread around the state, but were horded by the Bishop of Corpus Christi, Rene Gracida, a former USN aviator who delivered the benediction at the Thursday night of the 2004 Republican National convention when Zell Miller told Chris Matthews on HARDBALL that he'd like to shoot him..."I wish I lived in the time when we still had duels."

Hey, Zell. WE DO! You go hunting with Cheney next time!