Cheney finally speaks — on Fox News

February 15, 2006

ABC News’ The Note conveniently laid out Dick Cheney’s options today, including keeping quiet, hosting a press conference, or sitting down for “an exclusive interview with one groveling, well-chosen interviewer.”

As it turns out, Cheney actually chose one of these. Take a wild guess which one.

Vice President Dick Cheney planned to break his silence Wednesday in his first televised interview about the Texas hunting accident in which he shot a 78-year-old lawyer.

Cheney was to appear on Fox News Channel at 6 p.m. EST, the network and the White House announced. He hasn’t spoken publicly about the accident Saturday that hospitalized Harry Whittington of Austin.

The interview was scheduled for 2 p.m. and Fox said excerpts would be aired before the 6 p.m. program.

I can’t say I’m terribly surprised by this tactic, but if Cheney is hoping to improve this public-relations nightmare, running to a Republican news outlet to handle softball questions probably isn’t the best way to do it.

For Cheney to break his silence on Fox News is, unfortunately, almost cowardly.

Update: Commenters seem troubled by my use of the word “almost,” so let me explain. It’s completely spineless to hide at an undisclosed location indefinitely, with the shades drawn and the phone off the hook, waiting for the big bad reporters to go away. It’s only partially spineless to go on the Republicans’ cable network to answer softball questions. I wrote “almost” because there’s a small possibility that the Fox News interviewer — I’m not sure who’ll it be, though I suspect it’s Brit Hume — will ask a couple of vaguely difficult questions. Maybe. I hope.

Shooter and Scooter, what a team…

  • ditto Ed. It’s downright chickenshot. Just like every one of these folks and their supporters.
    Cowards, Chickens, Liars, Traitors.

  • Obviously, the interview will take place at 6pm EST because it will take that long for the VP’s office to write the questions, fax the questions to Fox and rehearse the interview half a dozen times.

  • Since when has anybody in the Bush administration cared about their public image with anyone other than the base?

    And the base watches Fox news.

    So while I agree that this is a cowardly, partisan move rather than any sort of real effort to set the record straight, it’s certainly can’t be described as “probably isn’t the best way to do it” when it reaches EXACTLY the audience they want to reach.

  • Wow. That’s quite a broad range of possible shrapnel:

    Hospital officials at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial said they were not concerned about the six to 200 other pieces of birdshot that might still be lodged in Whittington’s body.

    You would think that the MRI’s/X-rays would be able to provide a little bit more accurate count…

  • What men are these that put their names in parenthesis? Cheney like Bush is a big advocate of ‘walk tall and carry a big stick’ but when I looked at his shoes he was wearing
    women’s pumps.

  • To repeat – “almost”?

    Does anyone doubt that beneath that tough talking, lying, evil exterior lies a sniveling coward with the heart of a petulent child?

  • If any of the other networks and news shows/personalities actually had any spine, or dignity, they would bitch up a storm over this.

    Haven’t heard a peep.

  • Billing on the Fox webpage:

    ” The vice president sets the record straight ”

    (cf. comment #8 supra)

  • All this does is allow the base to make excuses when anyone calls them on their pathetic political affiliation to a bunch of cowardly jerks. It will only look worse to anyone who really knows what is going on in this country.

    The essential reason to keep on top of this story, and not let it just fade away, is that this is a superbly illustriative example of the debased character of the VP. Arrogance, selfishness and hypocrisy all come in to play here, and these are compounded by the outright contempt that this man has for the “American People”.

    It also shows how incredibly poor his judgement is. I hunted when I was 13 years old, right after I took my basic safety training course. While I havent hunted in 20+ years, I still remember gun safety, because they drill it into your head at an early age. If I had shot someone, anyone, then, while hunting, and made the excuse that the person I shot should have announced their position, I’d have been bitch slapped upside the head. This is utterly ridiculous. That Cheney would slime his supposed friend like this is disgusting. Any half ass hunter knows it is ALWAYS the shooters fault, no matter what the other hunters are doing. A man walking, or even running (if he’s that stupid) with a gun 30 yards from you can cover only a little bit of ground in a few seconds, but a man with a gun, can cover wide swaths of territory in split seconds, just by turning to shoot a moving target. Cheney pretty clearly didnt think past his selfish desire to kill these birds, and also didnt bother to think that when you move your gun barrel to chase any moving game, you cover tons of ground very quickly, and you could very well be covering ground that one of your hunting partners is standing on.

    Furthermore, a covey of quail is about 6-15 birds in a group. If you are using bird shot to aim at a group of birds bunched together, and you end up hitting a human instead, you must be some helluva bad shot. Im not sure this guy should be hunting at all. And moreover, who shoots at a group of quail with a shotgun? Is it somehow fun to take out a few birds at once? I recall the sporting people amongst the hunters I was out with 20 odd years ago used 22s, single shot. I mean, Cheney should just go out there with a flamethrower, then he could kill all the little bastards right quick, and have a barbecue immediately thereafter. But all kidding aside, this is rather unsportsmanlike, which compounds the issue of the fact that they were driving around on a shoot and release, which, in my opinion, is pathetic. But hell, if he walked in the woods, a heart attack would surely follow. What exactly is the pleasure in this kind of sport?

    So, we have the most secretive bastard in the goverment, f-ing up royally, then trying to manage a coverup, and now going on TV three days later, with the propaganda folks, to try and salvage public opinion regarding another of his monumentally stupid ideas.

    And isnt it ironic that the very same guy who so jealously hordes his own privacy, is the guy who wants to take away yours and that of the rest of the “American People”?

  • “Shooter and Scooter” – Incompetence And Criminality. What better symbol for the modern Republican Party?

    Catfish, I do believe you’ve just invented the new progressive meme for 2006. Congratulations, well done!!

  • I think Cheney was pretty boozed up by 5:30 and still trying to show off for his date, 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 Republicans between 2000 and 2004).

    The secrecy imposed by the aiding-and-abetting Secret Service was to give Shooter time to get his blood-alcohol level down and, hopefully, to prevent word of the two-men, two-women frolic from leaking out. No wonder Lynn Cheney has had to turn to writing porn for entertainment.

  • Oh yeah we are definitely going to get good question and straight answers with Brit Hume. But I don’t guess either is what the WH and veep’s office wants. Of course Cheney is only doing this because it has gotten to the point that even he can’t ignore it any more. Andrew Sullivan has a good analysis of Cheny:

    Dick Cheney’s behavior in this incident is exactly the same as his behavior elsewhere. He thinks he’s answerable to no one. He doesn’t just disagree with his critics; he has complete contempt for them. The reason he didn’t contact the police or perform routine notification of the press is that he’s Dick Cheney. Why should he deign to tell anyone? It’s his private life; and he has a war to run, detainees to order tortured, phones to tap, laws to break. And he may well believe he is doing all this for the good – because we face a dangerous enemy and only he, in his mind, has the capacity to stop it. This afternoon, he will give Brit Hume an audience. The Prince-Regent will not deign to be interviewed by a journalist not actually a daily spinner for the administration, let alone subject himself to a press conference, where he might be forced to answer real questions. And this set-up, in which an arrogant, unreachable, all-powerful vice-president determines critical policy decisions (most of which have proved nothing less than calamitous), is a troubling one in a democracy.

  • The likely scenario is pretty clear now from the details that have emerged.
    1. Whittington was not “peppered” from a distance. He was blasted with almost the full load from a distance that allowed pretty deep penetration of the birdshot into areas covered by a jacket and heavy clothing.
    2. Alcohol was on the menu. As the attorney interviewed on MSNBC last night said, “In Texas, if there’s not horseplay and alcohol, it’s not hunting.”
    3. Cheney thought there was an excellent reason for delaying notifying, well, anyone.
    What happened is that Dick Cheney stumbled, possibly because he was tipsy. His gun accidentally discharged, striking the hunter standing nearby full in the chest and neck. The injuries were serious enough that all present thought there was a good chance Whittington was going to die. Not sure what the official version should be in case of an inquest–even accidental shootings may result in negligence and even manslaughter charges–RoveCo decided to tough it out until they knew if Whittington would live. Now that it appears he will, Dick has some carefully chosen words to say, none of which will describe the accident itself because of possible legal liability. it will be interesting to see if his memorized remarks will include the words, “I’m sorry,” for even that can sound like an admission of culpability. I’m betting on “extremely unfortunate accident,” to make an appearance on the transcript, and probably, “everyone involved feels for JIm,” but no active use of a personal pronoun like I, me, or we.

  • re: MRI’s- I read somewhere else that people suspected of having bullets/ammo lodged in their body can’t undergo an mri because they have metal inside them, and metal combined with the magnetic fielf of the mri isn’t good.

  • Well well well. If Rove wants to throw Dick off the train, all he needs is a horse’s head on Hume’s desk. Wouldn’t it be interesting to have Fox nail Cheney?

  • Additional thoughts:
    The reason Dick won’t retell the story of the shooting is because he was the shooter. He bears culpability in case charges are brought. The people who are lying to cover for him–well, they’re not in the crosshairs, so to speak.

    There was negligent discharge of birdshot into a victim at close range during a shooting party. If Dick repeats the lie about it being a misdirected shot at a covey of quail being tracked by the Big Tough Hunter when it was a stupid, stumbling hair-trigger botch, what happens when Whittington doesn’t back it up? Or what if he dies within a few weeks and his children sue? Dick Cheney knows perjury. It’s basically his profession, but it’s something he certainly wants to avoid in this case by having other people spin the story about what happened.

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