Inside the Shooting at the Ranch

TIME ^ | 2/19/2006 | John Cloud

[Bahbah]

Well, you could if you were willing to make stuff up for real, something you are not inclined to do :)

[Casloy]

How close do you have to be for birdshot to penetrate clothing? How long can someone survive in a submerged car? Both good questions, unfortunately, some questions never get asked.

[OldFriend]

Might Cheney have had a beer in his own cabin prior or immediately after lunch with the other guests?

[Darkwolf377]

Show some respect for the False But Accurate media. ;)

[Californiajones]

Does anyone know what Satan in the Bible is called "Beelzebub" the Lord of the Flies?

Cuz a fly's only defense is his thousand eyes and the exaggerated viewpoint of a thousand flyswatters coming at him at once.

Satan is refereed to as Beelzebub because of the grotesque over exaggeration of reality he intends -- just like how a fly sees reality -- grossly exaggerated and a multiplication of evil intent.

On the Cheney Quail hunt over-examination, the mainstream press has earned the title: Beelzebubs, Lords of the Fly

[proud_yank]

There is also a small and geeky but persistent debate over whether Cheney might have been closer to Whittington than 30 yds., the figure in the sheriff's report.

Oh, for heaven's sake. Right. In reality, Cheney walked up to him and shot from a distance of 30 inches. These people will be in for a world of hurt when the GOP comes out ahead in the midterms. What did the 'Peace Mom' have to say about all this?

[Lysandru]

From an e-mail exchange that I had...

In a message dated 2/19/2006 5:57:53 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Jeffrey writes:

What I`ve heard is that it was 14 hours before Cheney was made available to the local authorities. Have not read that, heard that from another local news nut

Jeffrey,

When you say "made available," isn't this an implication that the local authorities were prevented from talking to the Vice President?

I have gone to the web site of the local Corpus Christi newspaper and looked around. There was no report there claiming that the local authorities were denied permission to see the Vice President. The newspaper did report that the local sheriff's deputies only bothered to go out on the next day. Check this bit from The Smoking Gun out:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0216061cheney1.html

Now, I am trying to be objective. Just because I think that most of the "Mainstream Press" is a bunch of biased, incompetent, left-wing hacks posing as real journalists does not exonerate the Vice President automatically. [Both Clinton and Nixon were hounded by relentless hostile "conspiracies"-- but they were also both guilty!] But let's examine the innuendoes being leveled by Mr. Cheney's critics.

The whole thing about notifying the major press organs is egotistical crap. They have no right to get the story first.

The central innuendo seems to be that there was some sort of cover up by the Vice President's staff, the Secret Service, and the White House because Mr. Cheney was allegedly inebriated. O.K., where is the evidence of this? Aren't there other possible explanations-- even ones unflattering to the Vice-President? Why is this explanation in particular offered? Is someone anonymously accusing the Vice President of getting roaring drunk before going out hunting?

Does the Vice President have a history of drinking to excess while hunting? The Vice President always struck me as, if you will pardon the expression, quite sober. But since I don't personally know the man, my opinion is of limited value. So how well do any of the people on television repeating this innuendo know the Vice President? Have any of them gone hunting with him? (Heck, how many of them have even gone hunting-- EVER?) Can they find anyone who has hunted with the Vice President in the past who will attest to a tendency for the man to "drink and shoot?"

Let's go back eight years. I assumed that President Clinton was guilty of perjuring himself about Monica Lewinksy before transcripts of Linda Tripp's tapes were available to the public. Why did I think that? Was I being unfair? Or was this a very understandable leap of faith given Mr. Clinton's well-documented, confessed, and acknowledged record of philandering?

Given Mr. Cheney's personal reputation, why should I believe the whispers of documented liars who are obviously harboring a vendetta against him? The narrative seems out of character for the man. Now if Ted Kennedy were in a dangerous accident...

I need some hard evidence here. Or are we are to believe that everyone involved is filing false affidavits because that is what the Clinton White House would have done. Or maybe everyone is covering up because they are afraid of the Bushitler secret police.

Maybe Dan Rather can stage a comeback by finding the original affidavits and sheriff's reports courtesy of some Kenedy County Democratic alderman!

--Lysandru

[Syncro]

Here is the hat Cheney was wearing when he shot and almost justabout could have not really fatally wounded his hunting companion.

[SouthTexas]

My favorite from the whole fiasco:

Our readers, such as Hugh Smith, know there is nothing "Podunk" about the Caller-Times.

"The National Press Corps is sitting around with egg on its face, trying to blame anyone they can think of for not 'giving' them the news," Smith wrote. "Someone needs to tell them to get off their collective rear ends and go to work and quit waiting for someone to tell them what is happening. If they don't know how to do this, have them come on down to Corpus Christi. I am sure the good folks at the Caller-Times would be happy to give them some training." Caller

[Rebelbase]

"How one shot turned a genteel quail hunt into a political crisis?"

They're taking Acid and smoking crack over at Time!

[Muleteam1]

[SES1066]

Somewhere in the FR discussions of this ACCIDENT, a smart lawyer/adviser (not an oxymoron if he posts to FR) specified 10 rules concerning shooting accidents and making specific references to how the emotions play in something like this. The shooter replays the incident endlessly in their mind, jumbles time-lines and has sleepless episodes.

To my mind, this is EXACTLY what the MSM wanted, to have a slavering horde at the ranch gates within hours baying for a Cheney press conference. A few sly twist-able questions like the classic 'have you stopped beating you wife' and they could smell the blood. To have been deprived of this feast is just too much for them, they still want to gnaw the bare bone, besides it does serve to keep Al Gore out of earshot - right?

[Positive]

Don't you like the italics around a beer? I guess they just want everybody to know it was a "direct quote."

[Darkwolf377]

LOL Yeah, exactly, they're just dying for the day when there's a presser and Dick Gregory gets up and said, "Mr. Vice President, witnesses said, and I quote, 'A BEER'. Are you now saying that's a lie?" or some other fantasy of theirs.

[UncleSamUSA]

This bit of press overkill to be filed under the "What if They Declared a 'Crisis' and Nobody Cared" file.

Might just be interesting, tho, to hoist a brew for every mention of the word "secrecy" in the article.....

[MikalD1]

It's just so funny, watching the parroting of the lies that Mary Matalin concocted for Cheney to spew about this incident.

First, it is time to cease spreading Cheney's fiction that Katharine Armstrong was an "eyewitness" to the shooting. By her own admission, her first reaction to the commotion was that Cheney had suffered a heart problem. She did not see the shooting. Her ever-changing account of events should not be relied on.

Second, it is highly likely that poor old Mr. Whittington was between 15 and 20 feet from Cheney when Cheney whirled 180 degrees (or more) and shot and nearly killed him. Tests conducted with the same gun and load Cheney used show the shot pattern is much more expanded at 90 feet (30 yards, as Cheney desperately wants us to believe the distance was) than the damage pattern on poor old Mr. Whittington's body.

Third, the morally bankrupt Cheney persists in sending out surrogates, including the victim himself, to place the blame on poor old Mr. Whittington. It is incumbent on anyone wielding a loaded weapon to ensure that he does not shoot another person. The quail-hunting community has weighed in with a resounding affirmation of that protocol. We don't know precisely why Cheney violated that protocol of the hunt. However, he certainly did.

Fourth, Cheney badly needs to offer a credible explanation for waiting overnight to tell the world that he had shot poor old Mr. Whittington. It wasn't to get all the facts together and release them. That did not happen, and it still has not. It was not to allow the "eyewitness" to tell the story. Katherine Armstrong was not an "eyewitness"; it is most likely that she simply relayed the story that Cheney, Rove, and Matalin cobbled together. It wasn't in deference to comforting poor old Mr. Whittington. He did not do that Saturday night. Rather, he went to the Armstrong ranch for roast beef and a cocktail.

Fifth, I would like to know precisely who, in the hunting party, drank what alcoholic beverages after noon on Saturday, February 11. We have heard at least three different accounts, two of them from Katharine Armstrong, the reliable "eyewitness," herself.

That's not all that does not add up with regard to the ever-shifting Cheney storyline of the past seven days. But, it's enough. When our vice president shoots poor old Mr. Whittington, we, as American citizens, our entitled to the plain unvarnished truth.

All we've been told so far is a bunch of hoo-ha with so many discrepancies and inconsistencies that it would be foolish to believe any part of the tall tale.

[OldFriend]

Another despicable aspect of this case is that two CNN reporters tried to sneak onto the hospital floor where Mr. Harry was being treated.

Notice, one of their own, Bob Woodruff is ensconsed in a hospital bed and there has been no information at all from the media. They are respecting his privacy.

Clearly Mr. Harry is not entitled to any privacy at all. One of the lib hacks was actually demanding to know the alcohol content of Mr. Harry's blood.

[girlangler]

I tell you, it's a coverup.

I knew that when the reporter on one of the national channels actually cut open a shotgun shell, and THE PELLETS in it were bigger than what was revealed to the press :)

[BW2221]

My guess is that the Newsweek version will be even more slanted.

[TeddyCon]

The MSM just can't stop digging their hole deeper and deeper.

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