Cheney Shooting

[jerseyhoya34]

Of course, this is a true embarassment for Cheney. I am willing to accept that it is an accident and move on. Things like this happen when rank amateurs and faux-sportsmen get involved in something like this.

What annoys me, more than anything, is the reaction of Katharine Armstrong, the owner of the ranch and Republican bigwig in the state. Undoubtedly Cheney apologized in private and whatever else since he is a "good man," but Armstrong is an obvious PR idiot. Instead of calling it something like an unfortunate mistake and moving on, she talks about how Whittington (the victim) "snuck up" on Cheney and didn't signal his presence. Then, he got "peppered pretty good." Next, Whittington was fortunate to have the ambulance provided to him by VP Cheney. As if this is all Whittington's fault and this kind of thing comes with the territory... Give me a break.

[showcase]

Hey, Cheney bagged himself a viscious lawyer that was sneakin' up on him - that's good shootin'.

[nychoya3]

Dick Cheney was hunting the deadliest game of all...man!

Honestly, was there ever any doubt that Cheney hunts people for sport? I knew it all along.

[jerseyhoya34]

Maybe a hunter can chime in here, but something about the idea of shooting grounded birds with a .28 gauge strikes me as particularly French.

[Jack]

Jon Stewart with a classic take, as always:

Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a man during a quail hunt ... making 78-year-old Harry Whittington the first person shot by a sitting veep since Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, of course, (was) shot in a duel with Aaron Burr over issues of honor, integrity and political maneuvering. Whittington? Mistaken for a bird.

[jerseyhoya34]

The WMD/quail bit with Cordry may have been funnier. This is true red meat.

[SirSaxa]

jerseyhoya34 said:

...
What annoys me, more than anything, is the reaction of Katharine Armstrong, the owner of the ranch and Republican bigwig in the state. .

Jersey, blaming katherine armstrong for what she said to the press is like blaming Whittington for getting shot. She never should have been sent out to make the announcement and handle the press in the first place.

Chaney and his staff should have gone to the press right away. Why did they keep this secret? We still don't really know what happened. And if Cheney apologized, no one... not even White House spokeman Scott McClellan... knows it. The Vice-President of the United States shoots someone and they don't even tell the press about it?? Let's get real here. The buck stops at Cheney.

And by the way, the NRA firearm safety rules stress that the shooter is ALWAYS responsible for knowing what is in his path and assuring no people could possibly be shot. It certainly wasn't Whittington's fault. But that's the CHeney and WH "spin".

[jerseyhoya34]

I do not intend to free Cheney of blame here totally because he indeed "peppered" a human being. He is and remains one of the more destructive and disappointing public officials in recent memory. However, as a non-hunter, I am willing to accept this incident as a mistake or even an accident, although it does reflect clear stupidity on Cheney's part.

Reports suggest that Turdblossom and the other PR folks in the WH coached Armstrong, who was put forth at the behest of Cheney and his advisors. She was coached poorly and came across poorly. I don't think Cheney's mistake exculpates Armstrong, who came across as callous and a hack. At the time of my posting the thread, many of the 'details" that McClellan "eloquently discussed" were not available, so I erroneously assumed that Armstrong was on her own.

Total agreement from me on the WH's handling of this. In just about every case in this administration, they have reacted poorly to crises, without any kind of plan or care in their response.

[Joe Hoya]

"I don't even know what the (expletive) a quail is!..Why can't we hunt something cool, like a hawk or an eagle, something with some talons?"

"That'd be awesome. You mean something like big game, even like a gorilla, or a rhinocerous, or a (expletive) human being? Yeah, that'll get ya jacked up."

[EasyEd]

I believe Cheney should be sentenced to a group of sessions with Ted Kennedy on how immediately to report to the press when an accident occurs.

[Jack]

ed said:

I believe Cheney should be sentenced to a group of sessions with Ted Kennedy on how immediately to report to the press when an accident occurs.

Right, because the Vice President has no additional obligations to the American people.

[SoCalHoya]

If this is the way Cheney treats his biggest Republican donors, who knows what he has in store for the American people.

[jerseyhoya34]

jack said:

ed said:

I believe Cheney should be sentenced to a group of sessions with Ted Kennedy on how immediately to report to the press when an accident occurs.

Right, because the Vice President has no additional obligations to the American people.

I agree, Jack. The Chappaquiddick defense is pretty poor. Nevermind the idea that VP Cheney may have additional obligations, the idea that someone else's screw-ups exculpate another person for his screw-ups just demonstrates the lack of defense for Cheney's attempted cover-up of this accident.

I should add that VP Cheney has his own history of DUI violations and should be criticized for it even though Cheney wants us to believe he's a "good man." I realize more was involved in the Kennedy incident, but drunk driving is pretty stupid and irresponsible even if you don't cause an accident.

[SirSaxa]

Going back 35-40 years to find something a democrat did just demonstrates once again how weak (non-existent?) the Cheney case is. Does anyone else think that on a Sat. evening, out "hunting" -- in a CAR! -- maybe the Veep and pals might have "relaxed" with a shot or two (booze, not gunshots)? maybe that is another reason he didn't report this until the next day? Did anyone do a breathalyzer on Chaney?

Also, by not reporting right away and then having their lobbyist pal release the story to a local small town paper, they were clearly planning to keep the story off the front page of every Sunday paper in America. They also wanted to keep it off the Sunday news talk shows and hopefully let it slip out little-noticed during the weekend. And yes, they absolutely wanted to blame the victim.

Cheney and his buddy Bush think they are above the law... torture, wire taps, manipulating intelligence, starting unjustified wars, disclosing classified information, outing CIA operatives, attacking everyone who disagrees with them with personal slander and lies, refusing to divulge information about 9/11, Katrina, energy "policy", and virtually everything else they are up to.

I find it totally incomprehensible that responsible Republicans could actually defend this pair after all the havoc they have wreaked on America, our reputation abroad, our values at home. Unless, of course, they own Halliburton stock... up 500% since the Bush/Cheney team took over.

Here's hoping that McCain, Hagel, Whitman and other Republicans can wrest control of their party away from Bush/Cheney/Delay/Abramhof/Frist and the fundamentalist Christians.

[EasyEd]

From the New York Times: www.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/politics/15cheney.html?ei=5065&en=7ea50da0d7acc478&ex=1140670800&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

Shooting occurred at 5:50PM Saturday. Secret Service notified Sheriff by 7:00PM Saturday. Secret Service offered to make Cheney available for interview with Sheriff as soon as possible but Sheriff agreed to wait until Sunday. Interview took place at 8:00AM Sunday.

Katherine Armstrong, a witness to the shooting, notified the local press so there was no hiding the happening. The main source of the moaning in this country is that the mainstream media were not informed. I agree they should have been informed but, by notifying the local media, it's obvious they were not hiding it.

And, Sir Saxa, your post shows you are obviously not unbiased.

As an aside, Senate Minority Leader, Harry Reid, had a mini-stroke last week and did not inform anyone for three days. Where's the uproar on this? He's the Democrat leader in the Senate!

[hoyarooter]

Easy Ed, is it impossible for you to just admit that Cheney and the WH screwed up, and move on? How is comparing this to Harry Reid having a mini-stroke in the least way relevant?

I admit that I am not now nor have I ever been a fan of Cheney, but I am more than willing to acknowledge that this was just an unfortunate accident. Had Cheney stepped forward immediately and treated it as such, the furor would most likely have already died down. Sure, he'll be the butt of jokes for awhile, but that's inevitable. Bush will be the butt of jokes for as long as he is president, since he will be forced to continue to make speeches. Live with it and move on.

[jerseyhoya34]

I don't think the problem has to due with reporting to law enforcement but the lack of responsible reporting to the media. We'll never know whether Cheney was drunk, but nothing you've posted proves he was not. We may never know the full extent of the friendship between Cheney and the third person in the party, who was apparently standing beside Cheney when he shot Whittington and may have had a better vantage point than Armstrong, who was sitting in a car. I should note that the timeline has changed because the WH has changed its story due to new information and other factors.

In terms of hiding the story, let's be serious. While they did not necessarily cover the whole thing up, they wanted to make sure it was not on the Sunday talk shows and wanted it to get as little attention as possible. Some former Republican spokesmen, including Ari Fleischer and Fitzwater, have criticized the mishandling of the media effort. In terms of cover-up, why did Scotty McClellan joke about the incident at yesterday's briefing when he had already been informed of Whittington's heart attack?

Standing behind Armstrong is even more ridiculous considering her effort to make Cheney into the victim of this thing and to diminish the seriousness of the incident. I just can't understand how you, an impartial analyst of this event, can reconcile your criticism of Kennedy with this apparent defense of Cheney.

In terms of being unbiased, I think that is a cheap charge considering some of your prior posts in the thread, which bring up an incident that occurred decades ago. At least he appears to be willing to admit his biases. I suppose we'll have to wait for Brit Hume's interview later to get a "fair and balanced" take on what happened.

[kchoya]

It seems like this is much ado about nothing - at least the aspect pertaining what was reported when. Obviously anytime someone suffer's a penetrating trauma it's a serious medical issue.

I get the feeling the media is manufacturing a feeding frenzy here because they're somehow offended that they weren't personally called 30 second after it happened.

I guess I don't get why this is a big deal. Was national security jeopardized? I don't remember the details, but if we didn't find out that Bush choked on a potato chip for a day or so, would that be a problem? Would it be a problem if we didn't find out right away that CLinton blew out his knee at Greg Norman's house?

[jerseyhoya34]

I wonder if there will be any cries from the right about Cheney's clear flip-flop. He has accepted responsibility for the accident in his Faux News interview today, after he and his office coached Armstrong to blame Whittington for the accident only days earlier.

As for kc's point, all of those examples involve a single person. In the Cheney case, he shot somebody, a VP has not done for quite some time. It is naive to think this is not newsworthy, and Fleischer's comments yesterday reflected that.

[SirSaxa]

For those who are unable to grasp the magnitude of the Cheney situation and/or wish to cast it in a biased light, below are some quotes from a W. Post article (See link at bottom of post) featuring quotes from prominent Republicans:

"The Republicans said Cheney should have immediately disclosed the shooting Saturday night to avoid even the suggestion of a coverup and should have offered a public apology for his role in accidentally shooting Harry Whittington..."

"I cannot believe he does not look back and say this should have been handled differently," said Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota who is close to the White House. Weber said Cheney "made it a much bigger issue than it needed to be."

"Marlin Fitzwater, a former Republican White House spokesman, told Editor & Publisher magazine that Cheney "ignored his responsibility to the American people."

"Some current and former White House officials said Cheney's refusal to address the issue or accept any blame has the potential to become a political problem for Bush because it reinforces the image of a secretive and above-the-law White House. Top White House aides are pressuring Cheney to discuss the incident as early as today, according to people familiar with the matter."

"If I read Dick Cheney right, he's got to be just devastated" by the shooting incident, said Robert H. Michel, a former House Republican leader from Illinois and a longtime friend. But Michel said he is mystified that the vice president has not come out in public to express his feelings.'


www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/14/AR2006021402137.html