Cheney speaks

February 16, 2006

I was cautiously optimistic that Dick Cheney’s Fox News interview would begin to offer a coherent explanation for what happened during the hunting accident and what caused the lengthy delays after it. It wasn’t to be; aside from a few welcome words of contrition, Cheney’s account of recent events still doesn’t make a lot of sense.

I won’t comb through every word, but for my money, this was the exchange that mattered most. FNC’s Brit Hume was trying to flesh out why Cheney turned over public disclosure responsibilities to the ranch owner/lobbyist who was 100 yards away from the shooting, a day after the incident.

Q: Now, it strikes me that you must have known that this was going to be a national story —

Cheney: Oh, sure.

Q: — and it does raise the question of whether you couldn’t have headed off this beltway firestorm if you had put out the word to the national media, as well as to the local newspaper so that it could post it on its website. I mean, in retrospect, wouldn’t that have been the wise course —

Cheney: Well, who is going to do that? Are they going to take my word for what happened?

This has to be the best Cheney line since “last throes.” The Vice President of the United States worried that an official statement about a hunting accident would be rejected by the public. In effect, by suggesting Americans would not “take his word” for it, Cheney suggested most people would assume he was a murderer.

As Kevin put it, “Cheney’s story is that his own credibility is so poor that a statement from him would have been worthless? Is he really going to stick to that as his explanation?” Apparently, yes. It seems to be the best he can come up with.

The explanation for the lengthy delay in notification also didn’t make sense.

Cheney: [W]e also didn’t know what the outcome here was going to be. We didn’t know for sure what kind of shape Harry was in. We had preliminary reports, but they wanted to do a CAT scan, for example, to see how — whether or not there was any internal damage, whether or not any vital organ had been penetrated by any of the shot. We did not know until Sunday morning that we could be confident that everything was probably going to be okay.

Cheney is intentionally missing the point here. The White House had a responsibility to let people know that the Vice President had shot a man in the face. There can be subsequent updates with more information as it becomes available.

Put it this way: let’s say Whittington’s condition was critical on Sunday, he was touch-and-go all week, and doctors weren’t sure if he’d live. Following Cheney’s logic, we still wouldn’t know about the shooting incident because, as he put it, we wouldn’t “know what the outcome here was going to be.”

Come to think of it, the explanation for how the news would be disseminated also didn’t make sense.

Cheney: [Katherine Armstrong] wanted to go to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, which is the local newspaper, covers that area, to reporters she knew. And I thought that made good sense because you can get as accurate a story as possible from somebody who knew and understood hunting. And then it would immediately go up to the wires and be posted on the website, which is the way it went out.

What an incredibly inefficient method of communications. As Cheney described it, he knew the story would go national, but instead of alerting the national press, Cheney had a private citizen contact a reporter in Corpus Christi with the understanding that the website would post the news on its website, which would be noticed by Texas wires, which would then be noticed by national wires, which would then by picked up by everyone else. This is a better method of alerting the media than a simple White House press release because … well, because Cheney says so.

I have a strong hunch political reporters are going to start to move on now that Cheney has expressed some remorse, but the principal questions have not been answered and yesterday’s interview does not resolve several underlying problems tied to this controversy.

And I thought that made good sense because you can get as accurate a story as possible from somebody who knew and understood hunting.

I understand they also considered going to Field and Stream.

  • Up to yesterday… I thought Cheney kept his yap shut just because he is an arrogant bastard.

    But since Brit Hume exhumed these prevarications…

    I now believe he was legally drunk.

    There is simply no other explanation that fits the facts and the lies.

  • True to form, Cheney manages to get a few digs into the press while he’s confessing to pulling the trigger that shot the round that…

    And it was also important, I thought, to get the story out as accurately as possible, and this is a complicated story that, frankly, most reporters would never have dealt with before, so —

    My guess is that if he’d done a decent job of explaining what happened — not spinning, but relaying the events and situation truthfully — reporters would have gotten most of it right. They’re very good at regurgitating what the administration puts out.

    As to why the press made such a fuss and peppered poor Scotty…

    I had a bit of the feeling that the press corps was upset because, to some extent, it was about them — they didn’t like the idea that we called the Corpus Christi Caller-Times instead of The New York Times.

    As for this statement…

    But one of the things I’d learned over the years was first reports are often wrong and you need to really wait and nail it down.

    … why not wait until the poor guy passes on from old age or whatever eventually does him in, and then come out with the story that the shooting wasn’t fatal?

  • No, Dick, we’re not taking your word for anything anymore, not after you lied us into a war with Iraq.

    Gee, people sure are funny about being lied to. You’d almost think Cheney killed someone or something.

    Oh, wait, there’s those 2,000+ dead soldiers piled up in the corner over there, and the 10,000 wounded ones you just cut the benefits for. And then there’s the Katrina victims. And the millions who will be harmed or killed by your pro-polluter junta.

    What was that about credibility, Mr Cheney?

  • “I understand they also considered going to Field and Stream.
    Comment by Rege”

    That was before they realized they Mary Matalin, who has now been hired by Fox News as their firearms and hunting expert.

  • listened to a little sean hannity on the radio yesterday (keeps the blood pumping) and some woman called in saying that the “mainstream media” is having a fit over this because “they didn’t get the scoop”. They didn’t the scoop because the cover up was on from the get-go. Now it appears the only reason it got out when it did was because Ms. Armstrong wanted to give some local reporter chum a shot at a pulitzer…

  • Ammusing and sad as the shooting incident was, this was the most important exchange of the interview.

    —-
    Q Let me ask you another question. Is it your view that a Vice President has the authority to declassify information?

    THE VICE PRESIDENT: There is an executive order to that effect.

    Q There is.

    THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes.

    Q Have you done it?

    THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I’ve certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions. The executive order —

    Q You ever done it unilaterally?

    THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don’t want to get into that. There is an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously focuses first and foremost on the President, but also includes the Vice President.

    —-
    Really? There is an executive order giving the Vice President the authority to unilaterally declassify portions of the National Intelligence Estimate?

    Or who else was involved in deciding what to declassify from the NIE and have Scotter Libby hand out only to select New York Times reporters?

    Does anyone remember the hoops Bill Clinton’s administration had to go through to officially declassify 20 and 30 year old secrets during his term? Now Cheney can do it with the country’s latest intelligence estimates all on his own?

    LOAD OF CRAP!!!!

  • Cheney: Well, who is going to do that? Are they going to take my word for what happened?

    Bingo..
    That how you know when it’s time to resign. In Europe they call it “loss of confidence” in the government.

  • Regarding said executive order:

    —

    Executive Order 13292 of March 25, 2003

    PART 6 – GENERAL PROVISIONS
    Sec. 6.1. Definitions. For purposes of this order:

    (k) “Declassification” means the authorized change in the status of information from classified information to unclassified information.
    (l) “Declassification authority” means:
    (1) the official who authorized the original classification, if that official is still serving in ths same position;
    (2) the originator’s current successor in function;
    (3) a supervisory official of either; or
    (4) officials delegated declassification authority in writing by the agency head or senior agency official.
    —

    George Tenet, as Director of Central Intelligence, is the ‘Official’ for the NIE. Cheney is not his supervisor. Cheney would not be delegated to be his declassification authory.

    Cheney might have been in a room where declassification discussions were being held. That did not give him the authority to direct Scooter to leak parts of the NIE.

    And leaking is not appropriate declassification.

  • “And leaking is not appropriate declassification.”

    Hmm, sort of fits in with “deciding to ignore a law is not an appropriate way of addressing its shortcomings”

  • Al Franken on MSNBC figures that alcohol was the reason Cheney kept it quiet and didn’t go to the hospital with his friend. Based on what he’s heard of hunting parties, which is that beer is a major ingredient in hunting parties and hunting accidents.

    But I think he may be wrong. Because here’s my question about hunting parties: How many hunting parties have hunters been on that are composed of two men and one woman?

    Now in an interview with that one woman, a woman who got the plum post of Ambassador to Switzerland, she mentioned that she’d been on a number of hunting parties with Cheney. Whittington, on the other hand, was on his first hunting party with Cheney.

    Sorry if I’m being sexist here, but it doesn’t add up.

    What it looks like to me is that Cheney was making an assignation with his friend, Pamela, and invited Whittington along to provide cover. Whittington becomes almost a hired hand.

    I don’t know a thing about hunting, but even the accident might have been in part because of Whittington’s inclination to give them privacy.

    And when Cheney shoots the hired hand, it’s hard for him to regard that as a reason to change his plans, when the whole purpose of the event was to be with this woman. So going to the hospital wouldn’t particularly occur to him. (Mind you, he’d still have to be a bit of a jerk for it not to occur to him, but that’s a given.)

    Now when you’re there to make an assignation with a woman, beer could become secondary. And while it may be true that beer and hunting parties go together, it also seem true that politics and affairs go together. I read once of a reporter who’d covered presidential elections for some 30 or 40 years, up through about Reagan. He said that in all that time of covering the Democrat or Republican candidate for president, there were only 2 candidates who weren’t having an affair. One was Jimmy Carter and he didn’t name the other. So what are the odds that a political player like Cheney doesn’t have another woman in his life?

  • I’ve just read a list of the other guests at the ranch, which include the ambassador’s husband (how can you be ambassador to Switzerland and have your husband living in Austin, Texas?), Whittington’s wife, Armstrong’s boyfriend, and two or three others. Women seemed to dominate — does that say something about Cheney or something about me that I find it surprising? Armstrong says that Cheney’s wife planned to come but didn’t at the last minute. Hmmmn.

    So basically, the scenario is still possible, but the situation appears circumspect and I should give it the benefit of the doubt.

  • Franken’s not the only one to pick up on “booze and guns” – Big Ed did too, back on Monday, and he’s been a hunter for a long time. Combine that with Cheney’s proven record of alcohol-fueled misdeeds, and it is entirely likely he was “loaded” – and not for quail.

    Couple that with the fact it is IMPOSSIBLE to get hit with 200 28-guage birdshot pellets at 30 yards – but entirely possible to get hit at 8-15 FEET – and the fact that the local Sheriff has now reported that the guy was standing on ground about 4 feet LOWER than where Cheney was standing, which means he had to spin around 180 degrees to fire at birds that FLY UP and end up shooting DOWN, and what do you have????

    A fat Republican drunk with a gun. And a big fat Republican coverup.

  • “Big Ed” actually bought the line, delivered by a caller, that since you have to “lead” the bird you’re shooting at that the VP might have been doing just that when Whittington stepped up to be blasted.

    I’m wondering how much of a “lead” you need at 8 feet? Especially from friendly birds which are trained to approach humans for food.

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