Chappaquiddick? Give Me a Break
Posted by Adam Graham in : PoliticsLet me preface this by saying I like Don Surber. Surber is a pretty interesting Blogger, coming from a more moderate perspective than I, but a decent sort of guy.
However, Don was Way off Base when he compared Dick Cheney’s accidental shooting of a friend to Chappaquiddick. Sure, this is exactly like Chappaquiddick except:
1) Cheney didn’t leave the scene of the accident.
2) Cheney didn’t leave his friend to die in the sun.
3) Cheney wasn’t drinking according to investigators. Update: This link has the information.
The investigation concluded that Cheney failed to have $7 state bird stamp, which was a mistake a lot of hunters made because it just went into effect a few months ago. Cheney sent out a check and paid it.
Don Surber is mad about the 18 hour gap between when the incident happened and when the press found out. I guess that is a serious offense. The White House cheated us out of a Saturday night and Sunday morning full of pointless speculation.
We missed having all the Network news anchors, as well as talk shows guests spending countless hours speculating. The failure to promptly report the story hurt media efforts to turn the shooting victim’s neighborhood into a circus. They also didn’t get the opportunity to surround the guy’s family as they entered the hospital shouting embarassing questions at them that they wouldn’t know the answer to.
We all missed out on the time before we knew, because there’d be breathless speculation that it was Patrick Leahy or even worse John Paul Stevens that Cheney took hunting.
Radical Russ didn’t get to write, “Those Religious Reich fanatics are taking liberals and shooting them to get their way.” We’d then have leftists calling for Cheney’s execution on Texas’ death row when the guy died for his act of killing a liberal.
Then, finally, we’d get the truth, and Conservative bloggers would then get to take their turns attacking Liberal Bloggers and the Mainstream press for their irresponsible coverage.
The Bush Administration cheated us out of this. They cheated the family out of getting to experience life at the center of a media feeding frenzy and for that they should be held accountable.
Instead, we got the facts once all the facts were know and as well as the condition of the victim. This isn’t Chappaquidick, this is an accident and Dick Cheney took responsibility, he paid his $7 fine and life went on.
Now, I do have to say if the guy actually dies, its another thing entirely. Then the Vice-President is looking at Involuntary Manslaughter or Negligent Homicide. But the guy looks like he’ll pull through. So, lets lay off for now.
Comment by question [Visitor]
Was Dick Cheney drinking when he shot Whittington? How do you know that?
If you shot someone on Saturday night, do you really think you could get away with not talking to the police until the next afternoon? Nope.
Dick Cheney is not the king or even the vice-king. He is a citizen of this country, subject to the same rules and regulations as the rest of us.
I voted for Bush/Cheney, but I do not like this practice of keeping every damn little thing a secret. If they are proud of what they do, they shouldn’t be so afraid of just being up front about it. This tendency toward secrecy looks elitist and I don’t appreciate it.
Comment by "Radical" Russ [Visitor]
1) Cheney didn’t leave the scene of the accident.
True. He stayed there and made sure the Secret Service prevented local law enforcement from properly investigating the accident.
2) Cheney didn’t leave his friend to die in the sun.
True. He merely exhibited extremely poor hunting techniques completely in violation of the Texas parks & Wildlife’s #1, #2, #5, & #6 rules listed in their Ten Commandments for Shooter Safety. If by “hunting”, you mean rich old guys driving into a field, getting out of their SUV’s, and waiting patiently as ranchhands coax caged, farm-raised birds out of cages and into the air mere yards away from the alleged “hunters”.
3) Cheney wasn’t drinking according to investigators.
Well, that was a nice link to the CNN story, which made absolutely no mention of any investigators coming to the conclusion that Cheney wasn’t drinking. Which would be a very tough point for any investigator to make when they are kept away from the vice president for long past the time one could reasonably determine if Cheney was drunk or not.
You know what the first question a police or fish & game officer asks when there is a hunting accident? “Was there drugs or alcohol involved?” We’ll never know, because Team Cheney hushed up the incident and sequestered the VP.
My conservative friends always berate me when I launch into my anti-NSA spying tirade. “If you’ve got nothing to hide, then you have no reason to try to cover something up!”
Indeed.
Now, instead of trying to deflect and obfuscate with some sort of Chappaquiddick nonsense (what century was that in again?), try and remove yourself from the Cult of Bush for a moment and ask yourself: what post would I write if Vice President John Edwards accidentally shot a friend full-on in the face during a hunting expedition, and then kept Edwards sequestered from the police for many hours, and kept the story out of the media for eighteen hours?
Because I know you’d be completely “fair and balanced” and give John Edwards the same break you’re giving Dick Cheney, right?
But then again, if you think rich man ranch retreats are “hunting” and a $7 fine is all the punishment one needs for shooting their friends and not fessing up to it for 18 hours, then you may be too lost to the the Cult of Bush.
(See Glenn Greenwald’s “Do Bush Followers Have a Political Ideology?” post, a spot-on description of guys like you who can claim to be Christian while supporting a president who authorizes torture, claim to be a conservative while supporting a president who’s grown the deficit and non-defense-related spending through the roof, and claim to be compassionate while supporting a president who let poor people drown in New Orleans while playing a round of golf, playing guitar, and sharing a birthday cake with McCain.)
Comment by "Radical" Russ [Visitor]
Sorry, forgot the “a href” tags don’t work here.
The Texas Shooter Commandments: http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/learning/hunter_education/shotsafe.phtml
The Glenn Greenwald Post: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/do-bush-followers-have-political.html
A snippet:
It used to be the case that in order to be considered a “liberal” or someone “of the Left,” one had to actually ascribe to liberal views on the important policy issues of the day – social spending, abortion, the death penalty, affirmative action, immigration, “judicial activism,” hate speech laws, gay rights, utopian foreign policies, etc. etc. These days, to be a “liberal,” such views are no longer necessary.
Now, in order to be considered a “liberal,” only one thing is required – a failure to pledge blind loyalty to George W. Bush. The minute one criticizes him is the minute that one becomes a “liberal,” regardless of the ground on which the criticism is based. And the more one criticizes him, by definition, the more “liberal” one is. Whether one is a “liberal” — or, for that matter, a “conservative” — is now no longer a function of one’s actual political views, but is a function purely of one’s personal loyalty to George Bush.
One can see this principle at work most illustratively in how Bush followers talk about Andrew Sullivan. In the couple of years after 9/11, Bush followers revered Sullivan, as he stood loyally behind Bush, providing the rhetorical justifications for almost every Bush action. And even prior to the Bush Administration, Sullivan was a fully accepted member of the conservative circle. Nobody questioned the bona fides of his conservative credentials because he ascribed to the conservative view on almost every significant political issue.
Despite not having changed his views on very many, if any, of those issues, Sullivan is now frequently called a “liberal” (at best) when he is talked about by Bush followers. What has changed are not his political views or ideological orientation. Instead, he no longer instinctively and blindly praises George Bush, but periodically, even frequently, criticizes Bush. By definition, then, he is no longer a “conservative.”
We see the same thing happening to hard-core conservative Bob Barr due to his criticism of Bush’s violations of FISA . Similarly, the minute a Senator with years of conservatism behind them deviates from a Bush decree on a single issue, they are no longer “conservative.” George Voinovich became a “liberal” the minute he refused to support John Bolton’s nomination; John Sununu is now “liberal” because he did not favor immediate renewal of every single provision of the Patriot Act which Bush demanded, and Senators like Chuck Hagel and John McCain long ago gave up any “conservative” status because of their insistence on forming opinions that occasionally deviate from the decrees from the White House.
We have heard for a long time that anger and other psychological and emotional factors drive the extreme elements on the Left, but that is (at least) equally true for the Bush extremists. The only difference happens to be that the Bush extremists control every major governmental institution in the country and the extremists on the Left control nothing other than the crusted agenda for the latest International A.N.S.W.E.R. meeting.
And the core emotions driving the Bush extremists are not hard to see. It is a driving rage and hatred – for liberals, for Muslims, for anyone who opposes George Bush.
If it now places one “on the Left” to oppose unrestrained power and invasiveness asserted by the Federal Government along with lawlessness on the part of our highest government officials, so be it. The rage-based reverence for The President as Commander-in-Chief — and the creepy, blind faith vested in his goodness — is not a movement I recognize as being political, conservative or even American.
Speaking of FISA, the denizens of Free Republic sure were quick to cast aspersions on the unchecked power of the federal government spying on American citizens when it was Clinton’s government. (http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a27337612f5.htm)
Comment by "Radical" Russ [Visitor]
Follow the link in the article. Adam didn’t state his opinion Cheney wasn’t drinking, the police said he wasn’t.
You mean the “3) Cheney wasn’t drinking according to investigators.”, with the word “investigators” linked to http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/14/cheney/ ?
Because I did, and the words “drink”, “drunk”, and “alcohol” are nowhere to be found in the article. Neither are they found in the TIME link within the CNN article.
Now there is this:
“This department is fully satisfied that this was no more than a hunting accident,” the Kenedy County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement issued Monday evening.
But hunting accidents can occur sober or drunk, and more likely, drunk.
Here’s a timeline, just so we can argue the facts, courtesy of that crazy, left-wing, moonbat publication, Forbes:
SATURDAY, FEB. 11
4 p.m.: Cheney begins an afternoon quail hunt with four other hunters on the private Armstrong Ranch in south Texas. They had been hunting earlier in the day, but took a break for lunch. Martinis, perhaps? Couple a beers? Who knows?
6:30 p.m.: Cheney accidentally shoots fellow hunter Harry Whittington while aiming for a bird. Secret Service agents and medical personnel with Cheney tend to wounds on Whittington’s face, neck and chest.
7:20 p.m.: An ambulance takes Whittington to a Christus Spohn Hospital Kleburg.
7:30 p.m.: White House chief of staff Andy Card tells President Bush there was an accident, but Card is unaware Cheney was involved.
7:50 p.m.: The head of the Secret Service office in McAllen, Texas, calls the Kenedy County sheriff to report the accident. The sheriff asks to speak to Cheney, and they schedule an interview for 9 a.m. Sunday. At the White House, presidential aide Karl Rove tells Bush that Cheney was the shooter, after talking to ranch owner Katharine Armstrong. So, 100 minutes after the fact, Bush knows, Rove knows, and the Kenedy County Sheriff knows that Cheney shot someone. The sheriff wants to speak to Cheney, but the best he can get is an interview for fourteen and a half hours after the accident? Yeah, just you or me try to get that kind of leeway next time you or I shoot somebody.
Saturday evening: Cheney and the rest of the hunting party sit down for dinner at the ranch. At some point, sheriff’s deputies who heard reports of the ambulance responding to an accident at the ranch stop at the front gate to see if anyone needs help, but are told no one needs assistance. The Secret Service earlier had said the deputies were seeking to interview Cheney, but on Tuesday they said that was not the case. Armstrong says no one at the dinner discussed announcing the accident to the public because they were all focused on Whittington’s well being. Uh-huh. Sheriffs show up that evening, but no one needs assistance? They’re not paramedics, they’re sheriffs! They want to interview Cheney, but now the Secret Service says they didn’t? Uh-huh. Just you or me try to turn away sheriffs at our door the next time you or I shoot somebody.
9:15 p.m.: Whittington is flown to Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial and is treated in the intensive care unit.
SUNDAY, FEB. 12
6 a.m.: White House press secretary Scott McClellan is awakened by a phone call from the White House situation room, informing him Cheney was the shooter. McClellan contacts the vice president’s office and urges that the information be made public quickly.
9 a.m.: Kenedy County sheriff’s deputies interview Cheney. Armstrong begins calling a reporter at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and leaving messages. Armstrong says she told Cheney she wanted to tell the local paper what happened, and he agreed.
12 noon: The reporter returns Armstrong’s call.
2:48 p.m.: The Corpus Christi Caller-Times posts a short report about the accident on its Web site after confirming the account with the vice president’s office. The vice president shoots somebody for only the second time in our history, and the first time the victim didn’t know it was coming, and it is kept hush-hush for over twenty hours!
3:34 p.m.: The Associated Press, following up on the local story, moves a news alert about the shooting.
Early Sunday evening: Cheney visits Whittington in the hospital before flying back to Washington.
MONDAY, FEB. 13
1:15 p.m.: Cheney takes part in an Oval Office meeting with Bush and the United Nations secretary-general, but leaves before reporters are brought in.
3 p.m.: Whittington is moved from intensive care to a “step-down” unit.
5 p.m.: The chief deputy sheriff for Kenedy County says the shooting is being handled as a hunting accident. Which I’m sure it was. Nobody is saying Cheney purposefully shot the guy; it wasn’t Scooter Libby, after all. The question is how accurate can the investigation of an accident be twenty hours after the accident?
6:20 p.m.: The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department issues its hunting accident report, which says the main contributing factor was a “hunter’s judgment factor” when Cheney sprayed his fellow hunter while aiming at flying birds. The report says both Cheney and Whittington were violating state game law because they did not have required $7 upland game bird stamps. Both are issued warning citations. But we’ll never know what might have been imparing the hunter’s judgment, will we?
7:20 p.m.: The vice president’s office issues a statement saying it was not aware that Cheney needed the $7 stamp and that he has sent a check for that amount to the state.
TUESDAY, FEB. 14
7:30 a.m.: Hospital officials estimate this is when Whittington suffered a “silent heart attack” without realizing it. It was caused by a shotgun pellet that moved in or near his heart. Cheney is told shortly afterward that doctors have decided to perform a cardiac catheterization.
10 a.m.: Doctors perform the procedure. Whittington is back in the intensive care unit and told he will probably need to stay at the hospital another week for observation. Never before has Dick Cheney prayed so hard for the life of another human being.
12:30 p.m.: Cheney’s chief of staff passes him a note that Whittington’s doctors will be holding a news conference in 30 minutes.
1 p.m.: Hospital officials announce the heart problem. Cheney watches on television.
1:30 p.m.: Cheney calls Whittington to wish him well and offer assistance.
Comment by "Radical" Russ [Visitor]
Oh, almost forgot:
The only difference happens to be that the Bush extremists control every major governmental institution in the country and the extremists on the Left control nothing other than the crusted agenda for the latest International A.N.S.W.E.R. meeting.
Which a commenter on Think Progress once stated as: The difference between the wacky right and the wacky left is that the wacky right drives the Republican party, while the wacky left drives a VW bus that reeks of pot.
(For the record, this wacky leftie does NOT drive a VW bus that reeks of pot. I drive a Jeep.)
Comment by Andrea Graham [Member]
I’m not the Cult of Bush, if I’m the cult of anything, it’s the Cult of Adam
Comment by Michael [Visitor]
Because I know you’d be completely “fair and balanced” and give John Edwards the same break you’re giving Dick Cheney, right?
But then again, if you think rich man ranch retreats are “hunting” and a $7 fine is all the punishment one needs for shooting their friends and not fessing up to it for 18 hours, then you may be too lost to the the Cult of Bush.
Radical Russ
You don’t have to be lost to ” the cult of Bush ” to see Russ is simply flat out wrong. Either he is intentionally lying about the facts of the case or he is grossly misinformed.
Cheney had a $125 nonresident hunting license but did not pay the $7 stamp fee.
Often when you hunt or fish in a private reservation the fees are included. Although I don’t hunt, I have been on fishing trips which offer hunting packages which include all the required permit fees. It may be in this instance that VP Cheney was actually attempting to
save the $7 fee required. Does anyone think that’s a serious possibility?
So let’s deconstruct this argument .
“But then again, if you think rich man ranch retreats are ‘hunting” and a $7 fine is all the punishment one needs for shooting their friends and not fessing up to it for 18 hours, then you may be too lost to the the Cult of Bush.”
This consists of 2 parts.
” … if you think rich man ranch retreats are ‘hunting..”
So if your notion of hunting includes hunting on private reserves for ‘rich men ‘ you might be …”Lost in the cult of Bush ” .
Since there was no ‘$7 fine ‘the second half of the sentence doesn’t apply.
The rest of the nonsense centers on an implication that a crime had been committed. Name the criminal statute which the Vice President is supposed to have broken. As for the 18 hour delay in reporting the event, Andrea hit the nail on the head.
“And I haven’t been following this closely, but the press aren’t the police.” Comment by Andrea Graham
The Bush haters are indignant that the press had not been informed in a timely fashion .
Perhaps these people need to be informed that the press is not legal authority.
Since hunting involves shooting guns some people will consider it a defacto crime if a person is accidentally hit. That simply is not the case. Go ask a dentist how many people get their teeth knocked out at a driving range as the result of standing too close to a friend swinging a golf club.
Many on the left have become so unhinged they don’t understand the difference between lying and just plain being wrong.Add to that now the difference between an accident and a crime.
Comment by Michael [Visitor]
This department is fully satisfied that this was no more than a hunting accident,” the Kenedy County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement issued Monday evening.
But hunting accidents can occur sober or drunk, and more likely, drunk.
Russ
SO what? That would be similar to saying you might have typed that statement while you were doing drugs. An allegation is meaningless unless you have some evidence to support the contention. Why not just ask if he beats his wife.
Comment by Adam Graham [Member]
I did find a story actually containing the full quote from Gilbert San Miguel of the Kenedy County Sheriff’s Department:
Its here
Now, mind you this is the investigating Department telling us this. Yet, Russ, and his keystone cops are telling us they know better than the officers in Texas who actually were on the ground.
The Democrats don’t investigate crimes or think about what logically happened in the course of a crime, they only target individuals.
Yes, I would cover this story just the same if John Edwards were in office. Accident happen. Unless you have proof, all you guys have is speculation and innuendo.
The police say Cheney wasn’t drinking and so does the witness who saw it and when Wittington recovers, I’ll bet you anything he attests that Cheney wasn’t drinking either.
Comment by Michael [Visitor]
It matters little in the end. People see this as yet another silly attempt to tar this administration with lies and innuendoes. They desperately cling to the notion of a vast right wing conspiracy and criminal actions to excuse their failure in general elections.
It is just too difficult to accept that this is a war of ideals and values and they simply are ill-equipped for the battle. This is a heavy weight fight and they are badly outclassed. They know they can’t win fighting fair so they resort to low blows and biting an opponents ear. They are the political equivalent of Mike Tyson, punch drunk and washed up.