Before we put a period on that sentence…

February 18, 2006

The common consensus is that Cheney-Shot-A-Guy-Gate has just about run its course — some media outlets have literally declared the story “over” — but that’s all the more reason the AP deserves kudos for a piece this morning highlighting some of the nagging “discrepancies” in the story.

* Assigning blame: The first instinct for the White House and Cheney’s allies was to blame Harry Whittington for getting shot.

“The vice president did everything right,” Katharine Armstrong, the ranch owner approved by Cheney to disclose the accident, said Monday. Whittington, 78, should have shouted that he was rejoining the hunting group after drifting off to retrieve a downed bird. “The mistake exposed him to getting shot,” she said. “It’s incumbent on him. He did not do that.” The White House picked up on that theme the same day in attempting to deflect any responsibility from the vice president. “If I recall,” Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said of Armstrong, “she pointed out that the protocol was not followed by Mr. Whittington, when it came to notifying the others that he was there.”

Several days later, Cheney said, “It was not Harry’s fault.”

* Alcohol: “No one was drinking,” Armstrong said at the outset. “No, zero, zippo.” She said the hunters washed down lunch with Dr Pepper. Cheney acknowledged Wednesday, “I had a beer at lunch” several hours before the group’s afternoon hunt, asserting “nobody was under the influence.”

* Whittington’s condition: Initial reports had him treated at the scene, then taken by ambulance to the hospital, where in no time he was cracking jokes with the nurses. It turned out that after being taken to the emergency room of a local, small hospital, he was flown by helicopter to the intensive care unit of the larger hospital in Corpus Christi. According to Armstrong’s initial account of the accident scene: “He was talking. His eyes were open.” Later, Cheney said that when he rushed up to the stricken man and talked to him, Whittington had one eye open and did not respond.

* Hunting license: Cheney did not have all his hunting papers in order, as suggested by the White House and initially stated by Texas authorities.

These kinds of fact-checking stories are woefully hard to find, so it’s encouraging to see the AP run this on the national wire. There are other loose ends — no one has offered a reasonable explanation for why the VP deputized ranch owner Katharine Armstrong as his semi-official spokesperson, and the reasoning for the delay in speaking to local law enforcement and for postponing a public announcement on the incident is still lacking — but the AP’s overarching point is right. This is a controversy that’s wrapping up with plenty of question marks.

Thanks for posting this, CB…

There are lots of loose ends but because the Repubs control all the levers of power – at the county level where the shooting took place, at the state level, and at the federal level – the narrative is concluded…for now.

I still maintain that Cheney is damaged goods (and may well be on his way out)…and now even Joe Sixpack understands the kind of privilege he enjoys – imagine having the luxury of telling your story to the cops the day AFTER you shoot someone…lol. (Of course, this is from the people who had the ingenuity to let the estate tax sunset for one year only – memo to Whittington: you thought 2006 was the year of living dangerously…)

In the meantime, keeping Cheney in office should be a public relations windfall for the Dems…I’m thinking the example of Whittington will be as lethal to Cheney as Katrina was to Bush…

  • On Whittington’s condition, let me just add in that the retired sheriff of the county where the accident took place opined that Whittington was “lucky to be alive.” I think I saw that in a WaPo article last night.

    Watching the video on a tiny little window on my computer screen, it was hard to see the nature of Whittington’s lingering injuries. My local newspaper today had a much better picture: Whittington’s right side of his face is discolored, and very, very bloated and distended; he looks like he took a very square wallop from a young Mike Tyson.

    Has Cheney apologized yet? This thing where Whittington is apologizing is like having new royalty in this country or something. Cheney just got a big ovation from the Wyoming legislature. He probably feels like a total dumb-ass.

    Remarks from a local democrat yesterday to the effect of “of course it was an accident” were kind of lame– why did Cheney run home to eat dinner while this guy was in the hospital??? That’s no way to act, and that’s the story. The veep is a totally irresponsible, hit-and-run prick, even if it’s one of his close friends, and the whole nation should be laughing at him.

    That said, I still think McClellan’s cracking on Cheney was a little bit of a deft move. They said, “This is a position where we’re nothing but weak. Cheney’s weakness- his bad move- is only going to rub off on him if we stick up for him. So, we’ll make ourselves bullet-proof against that by going a little more than expected in the other direction, and we’ll even be seen cracking on him a little bit.” See, in the end, they didn’t even mar him up that much because Bush then ended his cold shoulder as soon as Cheney started behaving better– then, Pres. Bush said, “Cheney’s response was totally fine.” They seem to do this type of move every once in a while now; I think I saw an example of it in the SOTU. But, it’s totally insincere IMO. It’s just covering their asses.

  • It’s just hilarious. He’s VP “I got five deferments and shot my friend in the face” Cheney.

    No wonder the Iraq war is so screwed up. I think now I know whose idea it was to conspicuously forget to plan for any aftermath or reconstruction. Hey, it’s not like taking out the government of a vast dictatorship and bombing lots of their infrastructure is going to effect the country at all!

    Another great job, Dick.

  • There’s also the issue of the very long delay during which the Secret Service aided and abetted the crime of not notifying local authorities. Since when have they become the Praetorian Guard?

    The National Review’s Kate O’Beirne blurted on a TV interview that the hunting party needed time because they had “so many versions” of the incident. Huh? The Secret Service wants to make sure the criminals have time to get their story straight before going to the cops? Their job is to guard the body of the vice-president, not his reputation.

    I’m sure you’ve all seen the bumper-sticker making the rounds of the internet: “I’d rather go hunting with Cheney than go for a ride with Ted Kennedy”. I am sick and tired of having Chappaquiddick dragged up, now after nearly half a century. People forget that Kennedy went back underwater, twice, trying to rescue her. They also have forgotten that he promptly went to the police to report the accident and went on TV to address the American people. There was no liquor involved. There was no Secret Service coverup. Do yourself a favor: listen to this minute-and-a-half of his speech (you can read the rest of it here, if you like), and compare that with the behavior of “above the law” Cheney this week and over the last five years.

  • And now we know why Bush keeps falling off his bike and crashing into cops while he’s riding it– heck, we know why he keeps taking pretzel-induced dives to floor that leave marks. It’s Cheney passing around the Long Island Ice Teas!

    Cheney’s the kind of guy you’d want to drink a beer with- hell, apparently he’s the kind of guy you could go to the train tracks and down a few six-packs with. But don’t give him any executive authority.

  • Jim B (#5),

    That’s quite a picture. Turns yours stomach. Not quite the one the NY Times, Washington Post and other corporate “lefty” papers printed.

    Thanks very much for positing the link to it.

  • Mr. CB,

    You forgot three very interesting and potentially explosive “loose ends”:

    1. Ms. Armstrong says she was sitting in the car when she saw the Secret Service agents rushing towards the area where Cheney was, and she thought that Cheney had had a heart attack. Yet, Cheney claims she was a direct eye-witness, and saw the whole thing; supposedly that is why she was designated to spill the beans to the media. These two points CANNOT be reconciled; someone is either mistaken or lying.

    2. There was another woman at the scene in addition to Ms. Armstrong, named Pam ??? SHE is apparently the real eye-witness; some speculate that she is Cheney’s lover; yet there has been almost no media discussion of her or why she was with Cheney/Whittington, or whether she was interviewed by the police. This is way too suspicious, and the media seems to have swallowed their tongues in pursuit of this clearly-relevant issue of TWO women hunting/accompanying Cheney and Whittington, neither of whom were the men’s wives.

    3. Most intriguingly — and possibly most explosively — is what Whittington said yesterday outside the hospital after he was discharged. First, he apologized for having caused Cheney so much trouble. Second, he told the media folks that he had been following their efforts; that they had a hard job; and THAT THEY SHOULD STAY ON IT [did he mean that there were more details yet to be dug out and/or corrected??]. Third, he referred to the incident as having occurred “last Friday” (i.e., the TENTH of February). Everyone says it occurred at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, the ELEVENTH. Which is it? Clearly, Whittington was first taken to the hospital on Saturday the eleventh. Did the incident really occur on Friday, and did Cheney’s medical staff try to treat Whittington on site for 24 hours before they decided that he needed more serious intervention to prevent his death?

    I don’t know what Cheney’s itinerary was (e.g., when did he first arrive at the Armstrong ranch); I don’t know if Whittington was merely confused when he said the incident occured on Friday, or if he was giving clues to the media to pursue; and I don’t know if “Big Dick” Cheney is getting some on the side, since Lynne seems to swing the other way, but the mystery woman’s presence has been seriously ignored by the CCCP.

    These are serious issues that need to be addressed, especially the possibility that the incident occurred more than 24 hours before Whittington was taken to the hospital. THAT would not surprise me, that Cheney would be arrogant enough to try to sweep the entire incident under the rug… but Whittington “caused so much trouble for Cheney” because Whittington’s injuries were sufficiently serious and life-threatening as to require a trauma center and ICU to save his life.

    So, Mr. CB, what about THESE loose ends?

  • AL,

    The supposed girlfriend of Cheney during the “hunt” (as I suggested in #18, heney finally speaks — on Fox News, Feb. 15) was Pamela Pitzer Willeford, US ambassador to Switzerland and Lichtenstein (one of the true “plums”, given in exchange for her personal gift of $23,000 to Texas Republicans between 2000 and 2004). I’m sure they whisked her back to Switzerland to keep her out the spotlight.

  • Swan, the picture of Whittington, admittedly, is pretty bad, but you should be aware that the discoloration is most likely iodine, which is from the hospital. However, the important thing about the NYTimes picture, is that you can count a lot of the pellets that hit just that visible area. You might have seen some of the earlier posts a couple of days back, but apparently this type of gun would put out a pattern of pellets around 4 feet in diameter at 25 yards, so at 30 yards, just slightly more than that. Given that he was hit from the face to at least down to the heart area, since one almost went in, that means, judging from the density of the pellets shot into his face, that his body soaked up a large percentage of the 260 odd pellets in the round Cheney shot. So, you do the math. If he has that many pellets in him, at 30 yards he would have had to have taken an almost directly spot on shot from Cheney, and yet, since it’s about a 12 square foot area (pi x 2ft radius squared) that the 260 pellets are dispersed in, and probably 2 or 3 square feet of his bodys surface took pellets, this is impossible. My guess is that he was a lot closer, and this was a different sort of accident, there was no “running up to him” after Cheney shot him. Still no confirmation from anyone on the number of pellets that hit Whittington, but you can probably estimate by counting the number visible in that picture, and then multiplying by the ratio in total surface hit to surface visible in pic. Granted the shot is more concentrated toward the center of the dispersal pattern, but either way, this looks totally suspicous.

  • Know Your Trolls Revised.

    Okay I’ve done a little bit more digging on our new trolls waumpuscat and bogie. Bogie is a regular poster on TheHighRoad.org a 2nd amendment site. Not everyone there is as loony at these two, however. There is actually some rational commentary on the Cheney incident here. The 10th comment on that thread is bogie’s. You can see he looks as stupid there as he does here.

    Bogie’s profile is here. In this post he identifies waumpuscat as his father. So either they work in tandem or are in fact the same person.

    I’ve found some obtuse political posts by waumpuscat around the web which match the pattern established in his post at the Carpetbagger. You can find one of them here.

    It is unlikely that this waumpuscat and the itinerate preacher, that I identified earlier, that goes by the same name, are the same person. Bogie identifies his father as a WWII army vet. Waumpuscat also makes reference to service in WWII in one his posts elsewhere. The itinerant preacher is a Vietnam era Navy vet. According to Bogie’s profile at TheHighRoad.org he was born in 1960 which would make him too young to be the preacher.

    You may ask why go to all this trouble? It’s simple, I like puzzles.

    BTW, you may want to check out this post for a little insight in to our new troll bogie.

  • I just got back from exploring TheHighRoad.org.
    Theoretical physicists are correct. There is an alternate universe. A place were klingons and orcs growl and grunt about gun rights and Ted Kennedy. Bogie, I’m glad you feel insulted by the misattribution.

  • Im just saying, from experience with that type of discoloration, discussions with my medical school friends, etc. It’s mostly irrelevant, because you could get that kind of bruising from just being bitchslapped, so of course you could from being shot. The bruising isnt that important. The important thing is that the dude wasn’t thirty yards away, and in fact, it seems to me that most of this story is pure BS PR.

  • would u rather go hunting with cheney or a car ride with drunk ted kennedy–ill take cheney better chance of living

  • Hm, I don’t know, looks more like horrible disfigurement to me than run-of-the-mill bruises. Not that I think it’s permanent or anything, but that’s like the mother of all bruises. Looks more like a few hits from a baseball bat than a slap.

  • It’s both Swan. If you saw the NYTimes pic, you could literally count the pellet holes. You are bound to get some bruising from that, which is what you see in the blue patches. The yellowish brownish discoloration is all likely what was slapped all over him in the hospital when they removed some of the pellets. He did get blasted pretty good though. Why it is that noone cares that Cheney is probably lying about the distance at which he shot him, and why noone has asked for a pellet count or done any ballistic tests, is truly, beyond me.

  • Bogie, I’m glad you feel insulted by the misattribution.

    Kali, I don’t think that I’ve made a misattribution. The evidence is rather strong. Here is how bogie identifies his Dad over at the TheHighRoad.org site (the link is in my post #15),

    My father… He goes by the name of Waumpuscat, and just signed up. He’s a rabblerouser of the first degree, a former (and surviving!) member of the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment, and an honored gentleman… So, without an further ado…

    Over at Kos there is a post by waumpuscat. Here is how he identifies himself,

    Born in Kentucky, Worked in Ohio, retired to Georgia. BA, Vanderbilt University. Veteran: PFC, 325 Glider Infantry Regiment.

    So we can be fairly certain that bogie’s dad at TheHighRoad.org and waumpuscat at Kos are one and the same.
    .

    A waumpuscat also posts at the libritarian blog “out of step”. Here he is describing his experience in WWII, “I was an infantry private, recently in Europe, an ammo bearer for the 30 caliber LMG, when the War ended there.” His son bogie describes his father waumpuscat at TheHighRoad.org as,” …a libertarian before a lot of you folks were born.” I thnk that it is safe to say that the waumpuscats at “out of step” is the same waumpuscat from at “out of step” and therefore the same waumpuscat from TheHighRoad.org. Is he our waumpuscat?

    Here is a sample of his writing from “out of step”,.

    A civilization tends to arrange the populace into three classes, which sometimes sub-divide into hereditary castes. These classes are: 1] The rentiers, who use political power and guile to live at the expense of [2] the producers, who provide the artifacts, the comforts, and the continuity that make civilization possible. The remaining people, the vast majority, are the [3] perprtual infants, unable to plan or otherwise manage their lives. They mimic both the best and the worst of the “LEADER/FUEHRER/VOZHD” charlatans, who appoint themselves from among the Rentiers. Which set of mountebanks is emulated depends upon the fashions of social intercourse currently propagated to keep the proles amused and useful. SO, CUI BONO?

    Compare that with waumpuscat’s post from the Carpetbagger earlier this week.

    To: “tko”
    I sometimes take in stray Liberals in dire need of Re-Education. You’ll find the first month mentally exhausting, but you will thank me as you become adept at political/economic analysis and evaluation. The first lesson: Learn to recognize the would-be RENTIERS on the LEFT. They can be Invidious as well as insidious. I find them HIDEOUS! So can YOU!

    I think we can be fairly certain that this waumpuscat and the one from “out of step” are the same. To sumarize we are dealing with only one waumpuscat and he’s bogie’s dad.

    My next project: find a new hobby. Or maybe I can get datamining job with the NSA.

  • My understanding was that she actually said that there were some beers at lunch. I’m working on memory here, but I thought what happened was a transcript of her saying this was published on MSNBC and then the transcript was later altered by MSNBC.

    Assuming that a review of the tape didn’t actually show that they had written the transcript out wrong the first time, it feels to me like there should be something illegal about their doing that. We sound like we’re in Soviet Russia, where the Kremlin asks someone to change what was said and it’s done. Why should they be allowed to now lie about what was said in the conversation? Why should they be allowed to substitute a true transcript with a false one? Let’s assume it wasn’t actually the White House that ordered the change, but someone high up at the network — again, why should they have a right to falsify a document of public record?

  • I think that anyone who “kills for fun” definitely has something twisted in the brain.
    With all the media attention on Cheney shooting Harry Whittington, no reporter has mentioned that Cheney should not have been out killing in the first place. There are far more productive ways to spend spare time. Personally, I think that hunters are wildlife terrorists. And, I hope that Whittington now understands how quail feel when they are shot in an aberrant person’s attempt to have some fun!
    I am SO SICK of hunters killing our magnificent wildlife. If only we could encourage hunters to find something more productive to do with their time. They could volunteer to assist humans in need of help or they could volunteer to help animals in need of help!
    Real men don’t kill defenseless animals! In fact, hunters look like FOOLS all decked out in expensive hunting attire preparing to shoot animals who are minding their own business.
    I think it is time to try to make hunters take a good look at themselves and make them see that they are, in fact, losers. They are not macho or manly or good — they are odd people who find a truly distorted form of “recreation” in killing treasured animals.
    Hunters need to be reminded that hunting may be legal, but “killing for kicks” is not morally acceptable in a civilized society.
    There is the Magic of Co-existence when people respect and get along with wildlife instead of hating and/or killing wildlife to hang on their walls.
    Shame on men and women who hunt! They’re a joke!
    By the way…There are anti-cruelty laws that attempt to prevent people from harming or starving domestic animals.
    Why, then, is it OK to kill wildlife!?!?!
    It seems that the anti-cruelty laws should apply to all animals!!!
    People who hunt for sport probably never consider the true fact that the bear or deer they’re about to kill will feel the same pain that their hunting dog would feel!

  • The publicly available evidence (i.e., the police report (posted at The Smoking Gun’s Web site), and the transcript of Brit Hume’s interview of Cheney (also available on the Internets)) seems to indicate that Cheney spun around 270 degrees, in a counterclockwise direction, before he squeezed off the low shot into the setting sun that blasted Whittington in the face and neck.

    Hunting-safety experts tend to frown on this sort of spin move in the presence of others. Such a move can place others in a position of danger, at least momentarily.

    It’s not surprising Cheney spun around in nearly a complete circle before he shot, given his propensity for spin. But it is somewhat strange that he spun to his left, given his propensity for moving to the right.

    A longer (but not too long) post explaining Cheney’s 270-degree spin move is located at http://TheQuailHunter.com.

  • I THINK HUNTING IS PERVERTED AND SADISTIC. THE WILDLIFE/BIRDS DONT HAVE A CHANCE. THOSE POOR LITTLE QUAIL BLASTED TO KINGDOM COME BY A PERVERTED, SADISTIC THINKS HE’S MACHO MAN – HOW INSANE AN ACTIVITY!

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