In an attempt to diffuse complaints about the handling of the hunting accident where he shot a 78-year old man in the face over the weekend, Vice President Big Dick Cheney came out of his hole - a hidden bunker somewhere deep below Wyoming - and made his first public appearance since the incident.
Deciding to forego a situation where he might have to answer legitimate
questions asked by an
impartial press pool, Cheney did not hold a press conference at the White House, as many believed he would. Instead, he went to Fox News and answered softball questions lobbed at him by Brit Hume. (A transcript of the entire interview can be read
here, courtesy of
RawStory.com. A Windows Media file of the interview can be viewed
here, courtesy of
CrooksAndLiars.com.)
Among the hard-hitting questions asked by Hume:
- Q Mr. Vice President, how is Mr. Whittington?
- Q How did you feel when you heard about [the heart attack Whittington suffered due to a pellet that had entered his body near his heart]?
- Q How long have you known him?
- Q What was he wearing?
- Q And you -- and I take it, you missed the bird.
Tough questions, to be sure. But then Hume got down to grilling Cheney about the slow release of information after the shooting.
Q Well, what -- you must have recognized, though, with all your experience in Washington, that this was going to be a big story.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, true, it was unprecedented. I've been in the business for a long time and never seen a situation quite like this. We've had experiences where the President has been shot; we've never had a situation where the Vice President shot somebody.
Q Not since Aaron Burr.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Not since Aaron Burr --
Q Different circumstances.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Different circumstances.
Q Well, did it occur to you that sooner was -- I mean, the one thing that we've all kind of learned over the last several decades is that if something like this happens, as a rule sooner is better.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, if it's accurate. If it's accurate. And this is a complicated story.
A "complicated story"? What's so complicated about it? You shot a 78-year old man in the face because you apparently thought he was a quail.
The Vice President, however, had a more detailed explanation as to why he believed the story had to hold.
Q But there were some things you knew. I mean, you knew the man had been shot, you knew he was injured, you knew he was in the hospital, and you knew you'd shot him.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Correct.
Q And you knew certainly by sometime that evening that the relevant members of his family had been called. I realize you didn't know the outcome, and you could argue that you don't know the outcome today, really, finally.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: As we saw, if we'd put out a report Saturday night on what we heard then -- one report came in that said, superficial injuries. If we'd gone with a statement at that point, we'd have been wrong. 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 --
Hume interrupted his answer to ask about whether he had spoken to the White House up to that point about what had happened. Cheney said he had not.
Scrolling back through the transcript, I also came upon this item:
Q Was anybody drinking in this party?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No. You don't hunt with people who drink. That's not a good idea. We had --
Q So he wasn't, and you weren't?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Correct. We'd taken a break at lunch -- go down under an old -- ancient oak tree there on the place, and have a barbecue. I had a beer at lunch. After lunch we take a break, go back to ranch headquarters. Then we took about an hour-long tour of ranch, with a ranch hand driving the vehicle, looking at game. We didn't go back into the field to hunt quail until about, oh, sometime after 3:00 p.m. (My emphasis.)
Wait a minute. You were not drinking in your initial response, but then, in your follow-up, you say you had a beer at lunch. What's wrong here? Admittedly, one beer probably isn't enough to send even Dick Cheney off on a drunken rampage, shooting innocent bystanders. But something here just doesn't ring true... Perhaps it's because of this quote from Katherine Armstrong, as originally reported on MSNBC yesterday:
Armstrong also told NBC News that she does not believe alcohol was involved in the accident. She says she believes no one that day was drinking, although she says there may have been beer available during a picnic lunch that preceded the incident. “There may be a beer or two in there,” she said, “but remember not everyone in the party was shooting.”
The above paragraph was
removed from the MSNBC website later in the day, with nothing in its place. (A screenshot of the original posting can be seen
here, at Crooks And Liars.) Today, it was replaced with a minor addition:
In a recorded, on-the-record phone call with NBC News, Armstrong said that beer may have been available at lunch that day. "If someone wants to help themselves to a beer," she said, "they may, but I did not see anyone do that," Armstrong says. She says she was not sure if there were beers in the coolers but wasn't ready to rule it out: "There may be a beer or two in there, but remember not everyone in the party was shooting," she told NBC News.
And, of course, there are still the questions about how close Cheney was standing to Whittington when he shot him. Cheney stands by his statement of "about 30 yards," but
some people, including many avid hunters, have pointed out that the spread of the pellets would have been much further apart than they are.
Also, a new
article published on the Washington Post's website quotes Kenedy County Sheriff Ramon Salinas III and Chief Deputy Gilbert San Miguel Jr. as saying Whittington "had been standing in the bed of a dried pond,
several feet downhill from where Cheney and another hunter, Pamela Pitzer Willeford, the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, were standing as they were shooting quail."
So, to summarize: Dick Cheney
had been drinking, was more than likely standing closer than 30 yards away from Whittington, and he doesn't regret handling it the way he did. Way to win over the people, Dick.
*****In related news, I was listening to Randi Rhodes this afternoon, and she brought up a good point about all of this stuff. Where are gun advocate (and self-proclaimed "Motor City Madman") Ted Nugent and the NRA? Nugent, who is usually so vocal about his right to carry arms and shoot animals with them, has been strangely silent over these matters. (In fairness to Nugent, although I don't hunt, I respect the fact that he eats what he shoots. He's not one of those "sport" hunters, a breed of person I despise.)
As for the NRA, they apparently have decided to pretend that the whole thing hasn't happened. here's a listing of the "Headlines" from their website, from Staruday to today:
- NRA Collegiate Pistol Championships Set for Fort Benning, Georgia - 2/16/2006
- Dowagiac, MI Police Department Wins Eddie Eagle GunSafe® Program Mascot Costume - 2/14/2006
- Exclusive Avis Benefits for NRA Members: Rent 5 days and get a free 2-day weekend rental - 2/14/2006
- Olympic Biathlon Coverage - 2/11/2006
Apparently, both Nugent and the NRA want to distance themselves as far away as possible from the Vice President.
*****
I was over at Newshounds yesterday and spotted a post by Bronxboy, another member of the site, pointing out a
blog by Representative Stacey Campfield (R-TN) with the following post:
Dead eye Dick Cheney
Our VP is now clearly pro gun and anti lawyer .I say not a bad start.
I am taking up a collection to send a few democrats off on a hunting trip...
I hear some of them are saving up to give me a personal driving lesson.... from Ted Kennedy.
posted by TheRep @ 8:03 PM
Shortly after I left a comment pointing out the tastelessness of the post - not so much the jab at Cheney as the cheap shot at Senator Kennedy (over something that happened 40 years ago, no less!) - Campfield added this to his post:
UPDATE: You can stop the hate spam to me I was quoting Democrat Jere Hargrove from the house floor yesterday. If you want you can send him an E mail. Any one? Any one at all????
Well, yes, actually. I contacted Representative Hargrove's office via e-mail as soon as I saw this addition Wednesday morning. When I got home around 5:00, I found a response from his office in my e-mail box.
Hello Mr. Springer,
Thanks for your email. Rep. Hargrove would like to speak with you personally to clear up several misunderstandings at this blog...could you give us your phone number? Thanks!
Sincerely,
Pamela Laub, CPS
Executive Assistant,
Representative Jere Hargrove
I thought it was rather nice of them to get back to me so quickly, as well as offering me an opportunity to speak to Representative Hargrove himself. I haven't spoken to him yet, but when he calls, I will certainly post what he had to say.
*****Now, as I said, I wasn't too offended or irritated by the poke at Cheney. Right now, he's fair game, as far as I'm concerned. Apparently, the late night TV shows feel the same way. Here are just a few sample clips from the vast ocean of Cheney jokes:
There are plenty more, but these are, in my opinion, among the best.
Anyway, that about wraps it up for this one. Coming up tomorrow: How Ann "The Man" Coulter might be facing a $5000 fine and up to 5 years in prison!
Stay tuned!
All the best,
Derek
(DCF)
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