Update [2006-2-13 2:6:47 by BooMan]: Editor & Publisher reports that:
The more than 18-hour delay in news emerging that the Vice President of the United States had shot a man, sending him to an intensive care unit with his wounds, grew even more curious late Sunday. E&P has learned that the official confirmation of the shooting came about only after a local reporter in Corpus Christi, Texas, received a tip from the owner of the property where the shooting occured and called Vice President Cheney’s office for confirmation.
The confirmation was made but there was no indication whether the Vice President’s office, the White House, or anyone else intended to announce the shooting if the reporter, Jaime Powell of the Corpus Christ Caller-Times, had not received word from the ranch owner
Shakespeare’s Sister makes an interesting point:
It never ceases to amaze me that no matter what name appears in any news story with any prominent member of the administration, they always seem to be attached to some scandal in George Bush’s past.
In this case, the scandal relates to the Texas Funeral Services Commission (where Cheney’s victim served) and the Service Corporation International. It’s a long story but it also involved former FEMA boss Joe Allbaugh…the man that brought Michael Brown to Washington and made him his successor. We know how that turned out.
If only this was the final nail in the coffin.
Check my story below. I have a link to a long story in the Dallas Morning News on the funeral home scandal + more docs … reprinted at the Crawford Peace House site.
This is another octopus. Here’s an arm
the Allbaugh-Brown connection again…
no surprise. Anyone want to chase this baby down?
As long as no horses get drug into it. It probably goes to the Enron trial starting for a good conspiracy theory.
Hey, did you know Scooter Libby’s codename is ‘Harry Whittington’?
🙂
did you catch this?
Al’s always in there somewhere.
There’s a long list of Al. For some reason I thought this might be the one that AG protected Bush(Gov) from testifying so that his prior DUI could be kept from the public. I don’t think this is the one but it still goes in different directions….all bad for BushCo.
Actually, this gives me a little bit of comfort. It at least lets me think that maybe this insanity really is being caused by a relatively small, close-knit cabal, and once they are finally frogmarched out we can get back to the relative normalcy of traditional scandals and bickering.
Birds of a feather, they say ..
I see that cartoon and I can hear Cheney’s voice growling “Alright Tweety, you’re next, ya bastard.”
Heaven forbid the man lives long enough to shoot everyone on the list ..
Someone had to ask, would you go hunting with Cheney?
Hell no, for two very, very good reasons:
1. he had 5 deferments
2. proven not a straight shooter.
“You’re des-picable!!!” </daffy>
This SCI angle is quite tantalizing … talk about skeletons in the closet … or is it corpses in the dumpster, as it were?
Having read a few of those links, I can’t help but think of the ravenous take over crew from Kroner’s who hounded the Fishers on Six Feet Under. Anyone else think of this 6 Degrees of 6 Feet Under reference?
Duck Season. Rabbit Season. I do love that damn cartoon. At least you we can smile once in a while.
I can’t think of a better example of the callousness of the administration than Dick Cheney’s accidental shooting of his hunting buddy. That’s such an appropriate metaphor for the actions of this administration. It’s not that they’re deliberately evil. I believe Cheney wasn’t trying to shoot his friend. But he was so self-absorbed, so into what he was doing, so greedy – trying to get one more bird, as if he hasn’t killed enough of the poor things in his lifetime, that he ended up wounding someone who presumably meant something to him.
That’s exactly what they’re doing to America. They’re not deliberately ruining the country. They just truly don’t have a clue. The people they meet all kiss their feet. The protestors are kept down the road. They are ruining the planet with their energy and deforestation policies. They are dismantling our civilization. And all for a fast buck, because they can. They’re just following the quail and firing, irregardless of the consequences.
More at http://realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/.
I believe Cheney wasn’t trying to shoot his friend. But he was so self-absorbed, so into what he was doing, so greedy – trying to get one more bird, as if he hasn’t killed enough of the poor things in his lifetime, that he ended up wounding someone who presumably meant something to him.
Add to your metaphore the spin, the official version of which I believe I just heard on NPR. The guy “came up behind” Cheney and didn’t “announce” his presence thus Cheney bears no responsibility for putting his friend in Intensive Care.
Good God! Unf*ckinbelievable. It just breeds of scandal. No wonder it damn near sounded like a hit or a warning shot across the bow, the dude is deeply disturbed. This whole thing just reeks of something very foul.
just the beginning of the bird flu epidemic…
N i c e. yup, fowl . . .
ie, opening shot of vp’s campaign against bird flu.
…after a local reporter in Corpus Christi, Texas, received a tip from the owner of the property…
Why would the property owner tip off the press? I would think that this person supported Cheney, et al.
Strange.
The property owner is not just a “supporter” of Cheney, she’s a major Republican scumbag, which others have blogged on quite well.
My understanding is she called a close friend at the local paper sort of in a “hey can you believe what happened?”, not knowing that nobody had heard of the story, NOT EVEN the police.
Pax
angle. Is there a Texas law about reporting firearms accidents to the police?
Also, I got the impression earlier that the injuries were superficial. Just heard on CNN that the guy is in the intensive care unit.
Living in TX and outside Austin, I do have to wonder what other scandals went on while he was Gov. The funeral scandal really did not make news here and if it did, it was just mentioned in passing. But then again, the TX press was in love with Dudya. I did find an old article from The Austin Chronicle. However, it looks like this scandal made news else where considering Senator John Cornyn made this little statement for his opening argument when he was our AG:
Not only that, Cornyn went out of his way to make an appearance to defend the Dudya instead of the Dudya’s legal counsel and it looked like I might have to do some digging since we were getting sued 10X a day:
Here are a few more links found at Raw Story
Just reported, Whittington will not be talking to reporters “out of respect for the Cheney.”
Hmmmm…the guy gets shot in the face, neck, and chest…he must have been silenced.
Is this what’s known in hunting as firing a warning shot?
Seriously though, we pay millions of dollars a year to have our elected officials protected. It concerns me greatly that anyone (but secret service) was even allowed to carry a gun anywhere near Cheney. It could just as easily been Cheney on the other end of the barrel. It would seem to me that this should not be allowed by the secret service. Something on the order of “its alright to go hunting, but your friends can’t bring their guns”.
-s
Just to make a point, Mr. Cheney doesn’t hunt. He goes to game farms to kill pen-raised and -fed animals, who thus have little fear of humans, and who are released into relatively confined areas for the the prepositioned “hunters” to shoot. Reportedly, he killed more than 70 pen-raised pheasants and an unreported amount of mallard ducks that day. His party of 10 “hunters” accounted for a total of 417 birds that day.
Most hunters I know consider this entire activity to be both unsportsmanlike and distasteful.
Monday’s hunting trip to Pennsylvania by Vice President Dick Cheney in which he reportedly shot more than 70 stocked pheasants and an unknown number of mallard ducks at an exclusive private club places a spotlight on an increasingly popular and deplorable form of hunting, in which birds are pen-reared and released to be shot in large numbers by patrons. The ethics of these hunts are called into question by rank-and-file sportsmen, who hunt animals in their native habitat and do not shoot confined or pen-raised animals that cannot escape.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported today that 500 farm-raised pheasants were released yesterday morning at the Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township for the benefit of Cheney’s 10-person hunting party. The group killed at least 417 of the birds, illustrating the unsporting nature of canned hunts. The party also shot an unknown number of captive mallards in the afternoon.
“This wasn’t a hunting ground. It was an open-air abattoir, and the vice president should be ashamed to have patronized this operation and then slaughtered so many animals,” states Wayne Pacelle, a senior vice president of The Humane Society of the United States. “If the Vice President and his friends wanted to sharpen their shooting skills, they could have shot skeet or clay, not resorted to the slaughter of more than 400 creatures planted right in front of them as animated targets.”
Disgusting! No real hunter would go to such a place. But, what else would you expect from a five-deferment dick.
Good catch (and release);)
Did you notice this?
The arrests of elf/alf people and their prosecution puts the HS on an association of terrorist threat list.
my hockey friend caught it for me 🙂
Yes Dick and the Red Regime are scumbags who have to shoot caged and staged animals. I’m fuming that the news didn’t mention any of this…
How about this for a wild speculation. A few questions in the press conference laid out a remote possibility that the proper hunting licenses may not have been in place.
OMGG… not surprised… but then again how can one have a license for shooting staged and caged animals?
Is it legal to shoot that many birds in one day??? What happened to them all? Did he even retrieve them?
I don’t know all of the details but there were rumors that part of the delay in reporting it was due to the time needed to hide the eagles they bagged.
😀