Frontpaged at Political Cortex and skippy.
DCDemocrat offers an interesting theory on why there might have been a delay in releasing information about Dick Cheney shooting a man and why the ranch owner served as the spokesman.
From DCDemocrat’s diary:
In the early hours after the accident, I am willing to bet that there was uncertainty about whether Cheney’s victim might perish. In that case, there would have been clear legal repercussions. Any public statement might have furnished evidence in a legal action.
When they concluded that Whittington’s life was not in imminent danger, I am willing to bet that Cheney asked Ms. Armstrong to break the story so he would maintain plausible deniability concerning any statement made as a representation of the facts of the case. Ms. Armstrong, after all, was not a legal representative of the Vice President nor even an official in the Vice President’s office.
My bet this morning is that the PR strategy Cheney concocted was upon the advice of counsel. It was less preoccupied with the political ramifications of the shooting than it was concerned about keeping Cheney out of legal jeopardy. Whatever else that would suggest, it probably indicates that Mr. Whittington’s medical situation was at the first far more ambiguous than we have been led to believe.
That also ties in with Cheney’s statement that when he approached Whittington. From WaPo:
Q What did you think when you saw the injuries? How serious did they appear to you to be?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I had no idea how serious it was going to be. I mean, it could have been extraordinarily serious. You just don’t know at that moment. You know he’s been struck, that there’s a lot of shot that had hit him.
UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald has similar thoughts:
I’m far from convinced that there was any great cover-up here, but clearly Cheney waited to notify the press and then waited much longer to talk about what happened because he did not know what the outcome would be and wanted time to construct his story and defense. The interview was replete with the sort of obfuscating and evasion that one routinely finds in an overly prepared and defensive deposition witness who is doing everything except testifying truthfully and clearly.
yup. that has been my theory too.
Clearly the guy has very badly injured.
Couple that with the need to wait 12 or so hours to get all the alcohol out of his blood system, the drinks he says he didn’t have, and you can see rather clearly why he waited.
and maybe they had to whisk away the ambassador of Switzerland..
That had been my thinking too. I had thought, “Sex scandal! Now we’re talking indictments.”
Anyway, always remember it’s not the original crime, it’s the coverup that tends to get these people.
Cheney is a secretive, un-democratic man by nature and has a “fuck you!” attitude towards the public. Notice that he stressed this was a “private party” on “private land”–never mind that he is a PUBLIC official. Go fuck yourself, America!
But the fact that his mistress, the US ambassador to Switzerland, was present during his “Weekend With Harry”, and was at the scene of the crime, was no doubt a crucial factor in the reporting delay.
Also, the fact that Cheney was drunk when he shot Mr. Whittington might have had a bit to do with it…
And has anyone asked where Mrs. Darth was when all this took place? For being the VP’s wife why hasn’t anyone tried to get a statement from her of some sort..or has the press done so?
All I saw was that she decided not to go at the last minute but she’s been known to not care much for Dick’s friendship with Willeford
Well, I have platonic female friends, and I’m married.
But do I go away with them for a long weekend at a secluded ranch?
Nope.
The ambassador to Switzerland is Cheney’s mistress. The man has had four heart attacks, eats barbecued meat, drinks alcohol, is fat, doesn’t exercise, is in his 60s…and he’s still alive????
Hm, we’re talking “pact with Satan” here…
Good point rumi. Now, I’m not saying the Big Dick shouldn’t take his wife’s opinion into account. If she doesn’t care for the friendship, then he should take it into account. If he’s not taking it into account MAYBE he’s having an affair with Willeford or MAYBE he’s just an asshole to his wife like he is to everybody else. What a surprise that would be!
Maybe he is having an affair with Willeford. But the fact that they went on a hunting trip together is not evidence of that. I know people who do it all the time and they aren’t having an affair. They happen to like hunting, each other’s company and their spouses don’t like to hunt and feel perfectly comfortable with the situation. To automatically assume that a woman on a hunting trip with a man is having an affair with him is just plain sexist.
I don’t think I made that accusation. Actually, some reports said that she came to Texas that weekend, from Switzerland, to visit with her husband. I think he was at the ranch just not with the party of Cheney. I found some kickass photos of the Willefords on safari or something, kneeling over their slain wildebeast or buffalo or hippo os whatever.
Sorry rumi, I wasn’t accusing YOU of saying that. You were saying that the ONLY thing you heard was that Lynn Cheney didn’t like the friendship. Which I thought was a good point. It’s the ONLY piece of information that points to anything possibly being wrong with the relationship. And its not really indicative of anything except that Cheney might have issues with his wife. It’s the rest of the tone of this whole “mistress” thread that I object to.
Did anyone notice Lynne Cheney at the SOTU? SHe looked absolutely dreadful. As if she hadn’t slept too well for quite some time. How do these women live with the men that are destroying our country?
The only reason I’d care about whether Cheney had a mistress or not is that seems to be the only thing that Republicans find impeachable. Lying to Congress, malfeasance, corruption, they’re fine with that.
It’s one thing to HOPE he has a mistress. I can go along with that hope. I can hope she wears a blue dress and does him in the oval office when Bush isn’t there.
It’s another thing to assume that a woman is someone’s mistress just because she goes hunting with him.
This notion of assuming that questioning their presence together implies more than friendship illustrates the idea that innocent people have nothing to hide.
I don’t want my calls and email tapped because I enjoy privacy, not because I have anything to hide. If I have calls and email with a female friend who is somebody else’s wife then it shouldn’t be assumed to be an illicit behavior simply because we both want to keep them secret. I understand that part. Think the GOPrs will?
huh?
But, that didn’t work for Gary Hart’s wife. Maybe, Whit made a viagra joke about Dick. Ma
I ran across several articles from times past concerning lawsuits against a couple of these ‘hunter’s paradise’ centered on injuries due to negligence or some other fault that hurt the owner. That might be a factor but everything else mentioned here is too.
witness to the shooting and what she says is interesting. This from today’s NYT:
Then later:
If Harry came up on the right, shouldn’t the damage have been to the left side of his body? Maybe I’m missing something here.
i caught that too.
Wittington would have been hit on his right if he was facing the opposite direction of the VP.
Whichever way is west was another important detail that was mentioned specifically by Cheney. That puts Whittington between Cheney and the sunset to match the story but how accurate is it?
Then, suddenly, he was in a dip about 30 yards away against the sun just as Mr. Cheney fired a blast from his Italian-made 28-gauge Perazzi shotgun.
Do these people really talk like this? Is the brand of shotgun supposed to mean something? Last time I read a sentence like that was in “The Bonfire of the Vanities.”
the second blockquote is not a continuation of her quote, it’s just part of the Times’ piece.
Are you familiar with the work of Charles Willeford, the author?
Heh!
Sounded a bit like a Readers Digest-ed Clancy to me …
no, he only hoped he would die. Sorry, but Darth was up to something no good and as someone said, the coverup is way too deep for this to just be a “hunting accident”.
Look no further. The reasons behind the coverup are:
No one has suggested a motive for Cheney shooting Harry Whittington, a prominent Republican fundraiser. And if Dick wanted him dead, Cheney is smart enough to have arranged an “accident” for Mr. Whittington that would have occurred when Cheney was 1,000 miles away.
Come on, Cheney’s evil and fully capable of ordering a man killed–just not stupid enough to do the deed himself.
Umm…should have worded that differently. I did not mean to infer that he did it on purpose. Only that, after the “accident” and being slow to announce the “accident” IF and that is a big if, he MAY have been drinking or with someone he shouldn’t have been, he may not desire the “victim” to be able to talk about exactly what they were doing. We are all just speculating here.
Oh, but there are plenty of motives in the convoluted connections of all the guests there that weekend. That’s why a clean, concise, quick story would have been to his benefit. I don’t care who or what he has sex with as long as it’s of age and consentual. I don’t care if he shoots potential Enron or Funeralgate witnesses as long as he is under the control of the POTUS in a responsible manner and lives up to the oaths he has sworn to.
I don’t care if Cheney has a mistress. He can bugger sheep for all I care.
I am suggesting that the presence of Cheney’s mistress, Pam Willeford, at the ranch was one of the possible motives why he was so secretive about the entire affair.