| February 15th, 2006 |
| Another cover-up? | 10:10 am |
|---|
With all this hoopla over Vice President Cheney shooting a hunting partner at a ranch in Texas you'd think everyone really hates the guy. Oh wait. We do.
The place was the Armstrong Ranch in Texas, and the hunting partner was Harry Whittington, a 78 year old wealthy lawyer who donates to the Republican party.
Of course I'm referring to the incident over the weekend in which Vice President Cheney was quail hunting at a private resort-like ranch in Texas and accidentally hit one of the hunters in his party while taking a shot at a bird. It was supposedly purely an accident, done at some distance, and supposedly Cheney had no idea the guy was where he was. So much for look before you shoot.
The wounds were supposedly superficial, though we now know that at least one pellet from the birdshot went in deep enough to get lodged in part of the muscle tissue around Mr. Whittington's heart. I should also add that this is not a typical wound with this type of 'spreadshot' fired at the supposed distance Cheney was from Mr. Whittington. Whether or not we'll ever know anything more about this remains to be seen.
Of course the Secret Service was there and gave medical aid for the victim, and he was taken to the hospital. There are two main controversies in this incident. One is that the local authorities were not allowed to interview VP Cheney until quite a few hours after the incident, apparently due to interference from the Secret Service. I should add that this issue has been given little media attention. The other controversy, in fact the one getting all the attention is that no one bothered to tell the media anything about what had happened. Not the national media, and not even the local until the next day.
Once the story finally made it to the local media and then to the national it turned into a frenzy. Now while no one has accused him of any malicious action a lot of people have been demanding to know why everyone was kept in the dark about something as important as the Vice President of the United States being involved in a shooting.
Of course the White House, and Cheney apologists have given all sorts of ridiculous excuses. One of those was that they were so concerned about Mr. Whittington's health and that he got the best medical care that they didn't focus on getting this out to the media. Yeah right, I'm so sure that everyone there was so wrapped up in this that not one person from his staff, even at the White House couldn't have spent at most one hour getting some of the facts together, writing some sort of statement and giving it to the press. Bullshit! They could have at least let Scott "you should ask them about it" McClellan handle it. He could spin it up just like he's been doing since this story did break.
Another absurd excuse they gave was that they felt it was best for the owner of the ranch, Katharine Armstrong to decide what to tell the media and so consequently let her handle it, which she did by calling the local smalltown newspaper the next day!
I should note that initially we didn't hear that Mr. Whittington had a minor heart attack yesterday in spite of the fact that Scott McClellan knew this yet failed to mention it in a press briefing. Further attempts at covering this? I notice too that now 4 days since the accident we still haven't heard much from Cheney himself about this. Let me guess, he's too busy trying to make sure his victim is getting the best health care... A little more of compassionate conservatism no doubt.
( Read more... )
Clearly what the Republicans stand to gain from this is making the Democrats look pathetic, and diverting attention from the important issues they are losing sleep over. They've got a lot to be worried about. Bush has really fucked up in a lot of areas, and a growing number of Republicans seem to want to say 'we don't know him and we're just as confused as you are'. They are hoping to salvage just enough votes that they don't lose their ass in the next election. If the big issues get knocked out of the way to discuss stories like this and if the people continue to be as deaf, dumb, and blind as they've been so far, then the Republicans probably don't have much to worry about. And god help us all.
~ James Feeling like:  cynical |
|
|
| Top of Page |
Powered by GreatestJournal |