If Cheney hadn't stiffed him, they would find something else about the case to criticize him on. They might be going more into "was cheney drunk" theories.
Whats funny here...is before Cheney and Gore came along....no one cared about the vice-president and he barely ever got mentioned in the press. If we go back to Mondale...if he was really lucky...there might be regional press to show for a speech and if it were in New York or LA...it'd make the national press...otherwise, we never heard of the guy. If we go back to Agnew...the guy was sitting in a closet the entire time and nobody could even remember his name.
If Cheney had gone first to the D.C. Press, the drumbeat would have been, "he cares more about spinning the news than the health of his hunting buddy".