Cheney Drunk? by Lapis Blog entry

Blog: Collective Disease Incorporated
by Lapis

Cheney Drunk?

When you control the most powerful nation from the inside out you can easily abuse that power and place yourself above the law. Recent news shows that Cheney continues to do just that.

Date: 2/16/2006 1:00:57 AM ( 18 y ) ... viewed 2015 times

Media Ignores Cheney 'Smoking Gun'
A 28-gauge shotgun fired at 30 yards is too weak to cause Whittington's injuries

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com | February 15 2006

Amidst the swirl of outrage, obfuscation and wisecracking, one fundamental flaw in the White House's Cheney shooting story remains. How can a 28-gauge shotgun fired from supposedly 30 yards away cause pellets to become lodged in someone's heart?

How can a weapon that has little more power than a kids BB gun fire projectiles that in most cases don't penetrate further than an inch into a bird's breast and yet in this instance tore through a hunting vest, clothes underneath, the chest cavity and into the muscle of Whittington's heart?

Alex Jones has been bird hunting on countless occasions and considers himself an expert. Alex says that it is simply impossible for such a weak shotgun to cause such damage from 30 yards . Alex has used shotguns that are more powerful than the 28-gauge and seen pellets literally bounce off birds and only stun them. It is common practice for birds to be stunned as a result of the pellets not penetrating and it is usually necessary to have to snap the neck to finish them off.

The only explanation that fits the nature of Whittington's injuries is that Cheney's gun discharged at extremely close range.

The most fundamental basics of gun safety are that you don't point loaded weapons at people, you point them down at the ground and keep them very carefully under control.

As others have speculated it is likely that Cheney was drunk and he dropped the weapon, causing it to discharge and pepper Whittington at close range. Cheney refused to talk to local police until the next day and the Secret Service made sure the authorities had no access to him. This tells us that Cheney considers himself to be above the law.

If any other US citizen shot someone in the face would the police be happy to wait 14 hours before talking to them?

The media seems to be focusing on the delay in reporting the original incident and the White House cover-up of the fact that Whittington had a heart attack. These are important issues but why are no questions being asked about the incompatibility between the official story and the injuries sustained by Whittington?

http://www.infowars.com/articles/us/cheney_shooting_media_ignores_smoking_gun...

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Media overlook unanswered questions and inconsistencies in Cheney shooting disclosure

Media Matters | February 15 2006

Summary: Media reporting on the delay between when Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot one of his hunting partners and the public disclosure of that information have overlooked unanswered questions and inconsistent accounts of how the incident was revealed to the press.

In recent days, media reporting on the delay between when Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot one of his hunting partners and the public disclosure of that information have overlooked unanswered questions and inconsistent accounts of how the incident was revealed to the press. Many media outlets have uncritically repeated the White House claim that the Vice President's Office was solely responsible for the delayed announcement of the accident, without noting that White House senior adviser Karl Rove discussed the accident with his longtime friend Katharine Armstrong, the host of the hunting expedition, the night before she disclosed it to a Corpus Christi, Texas, newspaper. Other media reported that Armstrong said she conferred with Cheney before disclosing the story but failed to note that this account conflicts with initial reports that Armstrong said Cheney was not aware that she was going to contact the local media.

Media overlooked Armstrong's conflicting accounts of whether she coordinated with Cheney
Many news outlets uncritically reported Armstrong's claim that she obtained Cheney's approval before revealing the story to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times on February 12, without mentioning that this version of events conflicts with initial reports that Armstrong said Cheney had been unaware that she was going to contact the local media about the accident. For example, a February 14 New York Times article reported that Armstrong "said Mr. Cheney participated in discussions on Sunday morning about disclosing the incident, agreeing that it should be made public but deferring to the Armstrong family on how to do so." A February 14 Washington Post article similarly reported:

In a telephone interview, Armstrong said that she, her mother and her sister, Sara Storey Armstrong Hixon, decided on Sunday morning after breakfast to report the shooting accident to the media. "It was my family's own volition, and the vice president agreed. We felt -- my family felt and we conferred as a family -- that the information needed to go public. It was our idea," Armstrong said.

As Media Matters for America has documented, CNN White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reported on February 13 that Armstrong "told CNN that she did not believe the Vice President's Office was aware that she was going to go to the local press." Malveaux challenged White House press secretary Scott McClellan to why Armstrong's account differed from that of the White House, which claimed that Armstrong had coordinated with Cheney before contacting the press. By contrast, National Review White House correspondent Byron York wrote that day that Armstrong told National Review Online that "she did not coordinate with the vice president's office before calling the Corpus Christi paper," but later simply printed an "author's note" relaying the administration's account without indicating any attempt to resolve the apparent discrepancy. Media Matters also documented that CNN White House correspondent Dana Bash -- while reporting the White House claim that Armstrong went to the press only after conferring with Cheney -- failed to note the apparent contradiction her colleague Malveaux had identified.

Media ignored Rove's involvement while reporting that Vice President's Office was solely responsible for delayed disclosure
Several outlets reported that White House officials acknowledged that Rove, widely seen as the Bush administration's public relations and political guru, discussed Cheney's hunting accident with Armstrong the night before Armstrong told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times about it. For example, The New York Times reported on February 14 that Rove "called Ms. Armstrong to ask about the incident," while The Washington Post reported the same day that Rove was "told of the shooting Saturday night but deferred to Cheney on providing information to the public, White House aides said."

Another report, citing unnamed Republican officials, suggested that Rove was indeed involved in discussing how information about the accident would be released but ultimately deferred to Cheney. In a February 13 Web exclusive report for Time magazine, White House correspondent Mike Allen cited unnamed "Republican sources" to report that Cheney "overruled the advice of several members of the White House staff" -- including Rove -- by "insist[ing] on sticking to a plan for releasing information about his hunting accident that resulted in a 20-hour, overnight delay in public confirmation of the startling incident."

Other evidence suggests that Rove had an established personal relationship with the Armstrong family before his call to Katharine Armstrong over the hunting flap. According to an article in the May 12, 2003, edition of The New Yorker, Armstrong's father, Tobin Armstrong, was "an early financier" of Rove's first business venture:

Rove had the imprimatur of Texas's Republican aristocracy from the beginning, through his connection to the Bush family and to [Governor Bill] Clements. An early financier of Karl Rove + Company was Tobin Armstrong, the owner of a Texas ranch (it was on land leased from Armstrong Rove and Bill Frist were planning to go hunting) and the husband of Anne Armstrong, a former Republican Cabinet officer.

Despite the fact that Rove -- who serves as President Bush's primary political adviser -- spoke with Armstrong before she notified the media of the shooting, many in the media have simply accepted the White House's claim that Cheney's office was completely responsible for determining when and how the press would be notified. For example, on the February 13 broadcast of CBS Evening News, White House correspondent Jim Axelrod neglected to mention Rove's involvement in the story while reporting that "the decisions affecting who knew what when" were "being made on the ground in Texas by the vice president," and that "the decision to have the ranch owner [Armstrong] call her local paper to let the general public know of the shooting, that was Mr. Cheney's choice as well."

http://www.infowars.com/articles/us/cheney_shooting_media_overlook_unanswered...