WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Firefighters quickly doused a two-alarm fire Wednesday in the historic Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which houses the vice president's ceremonial offices and the majority of the White House staff.
Someone must have dropped a still flaming Constitution, I guess.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Doctors removed five small polyps from President Bush's colon on Saturday, and "none appeared worrisome," a White House spokesman said.Five, huh?
Think they were in the exact shape of Cheney’s knuckles, or what?
The vice president denied that the conflict in Iraq was fast developing into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
"That's not the way I perceive it," he said in an interview with Fox News.
Still, he said, Iranians "are obviously a major source of concern not only for the United States but also for most of our friends in the area, who are worried when they see an Iranian government that appears to be operating in a threatening manner."
"So, you know, it's the Middle East. It's always complicated," said Cheney. "There are always complex relationships between the nations involved, between the people involved, between the leaders, sometimes complex relationships inside the countries themselves."
Yes, that's true. The Middle East is always a complicated place.
That's why so many people were opposed to invading Iraq. That's why so many people were appalled that we apparently invaded a country in the "always complicated" Middle East with no plan for what happens when the shooting stops.
People who had never spent a day of their lives in government, people who had absolutely zero experience with foreign policy or diplomacy, people who didn't know anything about Arab culture or history or religion, people who had never even visited the Mid East--never mind having ever lived there--understood that the Middle East is a complicated place.
And therefore, they understood, it would be a bad idea to topple a Middle Eastern government and assume control of it from six thousand miles away.
Just regular ordinary people understood this, almost instinctively, in the same way that they understand it would be a bad idea to shove a pointy stick in their eye.
Regular, ordinary people don't actually have to shove a pointy stick in their eye to understand that it's a bad idea.
But Dick Cheney does.
Dick Cheney demonstrating how reptiles drink their coffee.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney says he is "willing to bet" that Democratic lawmakers will back down and approve a war-spending bill that doesn't call for U.S. troops to leave Iraq. A top Democratic leader shot back that Cheney has lost all public credibility.
With President Bush and Congress in a stalemate -- he plans to veto legislation that orders U.S. troops home, which the House and Senate plan to send him -- both sides are looking ahead. In an interview broadcast Sunday, Cheney predicted the Democrats will blink.
He said Congress will end up passing a "clean" bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without any troop withdrawal timetables…"There may be some people who are so irresponsible that they wouldn't support that," Cheney said.
Irresponsible.
That's tough talk from a guy who shot his friend in the face while hunting. Never mind that whole thing about committing a nation to war without any plan on how to end it.
That was real responsible.
As for troop withdrawal timetables, gee, I wonder who those irresponsible "some people" might be...
67. Percentage of Americans who believe that Congress should allow funding only with a time limit (58 percent) or block all funding for the war in Iraq (9 percent), according to a new CBS poll.
Yeah, that's right--two out of three Americans.
He's a sociopathic monster and very nearly perfect in his utter stupidity, incompetence, and wrongheadedness.
But, I gotta tell you, it's almost worth having Dick Cheney around. Just for the laughs.
...could make me honestly concerned that something might happen to George Bush.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, this is a argument that there wouldn't be any problem if we hadn't gone into Iraq. Now --
Q Saddam Hussein would still be in power.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Saddam Hussein would still be in power. He would, at this point, be engaged in a nuclear arms race with Ahmadinejad, his blood enemy next door in Iran –
Q But he was being contained as we all know --
THE VICE PRESIDENT: He was not being contained. He was not being contained, Wolf.
Good Christ, Cheney’s still pushing the Saddam had WMDs!
Dick Cheney, this is Earth calling! Saddam didn’t have any WMDs! Hans Blix didn’t find any. The Iraq Survey Team didn’t find any. Kay didn’t find any. Duelfer didn’t find any. One hundred and forty thousand Americans in three years haven’t found any. Hell, even Crazy Curt Weldon couldn’t find any.
That’s contained, muthafucker.
The funniest thing is that Republicans still think Al Gore is a crazy liar because all that stuff that Gore didn’t say wasn’t true.
But they’re okay with this lunatic.
One second he’s claiming Saddam, who three years ago hardly had conventional arms, would be in a nuclear arms race and the next moment he says:
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wolf, you can come up with all kinds of what-ifs. You've got to deal with the reality on the ground.
Hooooo-hooo!
Dick Cheney: Dealing With Reality.
This is the guy who was still peddling the totally, exhaustedly debunked Atta/Iraqi meeting in Prague even after Bush, on television, admitted it never happened. This is a guy who a year and a half ago was saying the insurgency was in its last throes. This is a guy who about a year ago said that “last throes” often go on for years, and years, and years. This is a guy who accused John Kerry of undermining our military by voting for Defense spending cuts that Cheney, as Secretary of Defense, proposed!
And his motto is: You’ve got to deal with reality!
It’s almost worth having him in the government just for the belly laughs.
My favorite part of the interview, though, is this:
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Remember, remember me -- remember with me what happened in Afghanistan. The United States was actively involved in Afghanistan in the '80s supporting the effort against the Soviets. The Mujahideen prevailed, everybody walked away. And in Afghanistan, within relatively short order, the Taliban came to power, they created a safe haven for al Qaeda, training camps were established where some 20,000 terrorists trained in the late '90s. And out of that, out of Afghanistan, because we walked away and ignored it, we had the attack on the USS Cole, the attack on the embassies in East Africa, and 9/11, where the people trained and planned in Afghanistan for that attack and killed 3,000 Americans. That is what happens when we walk away from a situation like that in the Middle East.
Everyone walked away from Afghanistan and, because of that, 3000 Americans were killed.
Okay.
So, in Dick Cheney’s mind, who’s ultimately responsible?
Well, it couldn’t be the Soviets—they were supposed to walk away. That’s why we armed and trained the Mujahideen.
So it must be someone else.
Who could it be?
Let me think…when did the Soviets finally leave Afghanistan? Oh, that’s right! February of 1989…and we walked away…and that led to warlords fighting for control of Afghanistan which eventually resulted in our good friends and allies in the War On Terror, the Pakistanis, aiding the rise of the Taliban.
Which led to September 11th.
Well, Jesus! Who was the jackass Secretary of Defense in 1989 who failed to recognize the strategic importance of denying Islamic fundamentalists a nation of their own???
Oh, yeah. I forgot. That would be Dick Cheney.
Quick! Someone call Dinesh D’Souza! We now know who really caused September 11th!
It was Dick Cheney.
At least as far as Dick Cheney is concerned.
Only Dick “Go Fuck Yourself” Cheney could possibly try to prove his point by drawing a stark contrast between what Dick Cheney has done as opposed to what Dick Cheney has done.
(as for Cheney's insane assertion that numerous blunders have hurt the administration's credibility on Iraq are simply "hogwash", I would invite everyone to read Imperial Life In the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone and State of Denial: Bush At War, Part III. Read them. Weep for a while. And then decide for yourself if them ol' blunders aren't just a big ol' bunch of hogwash.)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has warned Vice President Dick Cheney that Saudi Arabia would back the Sunnis if the United States pulls out of Iraq, according to a senior American official.
The official said the king "read the riot act" to the vice president when the two met last month in the Saudi capital, Riyadh…
Asked about the meeting, a senior Saudi official -- who spoke on condition he not be named -- ruled out using terminology such as "warning" or "threatening." He said, "I believe the Saudi position was clear, that things might deteriorate or drift in Iraq, and then the kingdom will find itself forced to interfere…"
The Saudi king told Cheney that his country would be forced to step in and support "like-minded Sunni Arabs" if the situation in Iraq fell apart and the Sunnis' safety was in jeopardy, the senior U.S. official said.
The monarch said he would "intervene aggressively on one side absent an American presence," the source said.
And all these right wing nuts blow a gasket over the United Nations...
The citizen soldiers of the greatest democracy in the history of the world, the citizen soldiers who once defeated Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito--at the same time--are now mercenaries for the Kingdom of Saud.
I love this new American Empire thing these Bush guys are doing. They're making us all so proud.
New Caffeine-free Diet Sprites!
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- When he travels, Vice President Dick Cheney wants his hotel suites at 68 degrees, a document published Thursday by "The Smoking Gun" Web site stipulates.
He also wants fresh-brewed, decaffeinated coffee, four to six bottles of water and four cans of caffeine-free Diet Sprite, according to the list of requests, which is titled "Vice Presidential Downtime Requirements."
Right. I believe this like I believe Bush's Summer Reading List.
We all know what Dick Cheney wants in his room when he travels: ammo, plasma, defibrillator, six dozen passive quails, and some kind of occlusive patch for sucking chest wounds in case any of his good lawyer friends stop by.
And, oh yeah, a "Do Not Disturb" sign. You know, for the local deputies.
The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.
In recent weeks, dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by agents from the FBI's Washington field office, who are investigating possible leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA's warrantless domestic surveillance program, according to law enforcement and intelligence officials familiar with the two cases.
Numerous employees at the CIA, FBI, Justice Department and other agencies also have received letters from Justice prohibiting them from discussing even unclassified issues related to the NSA program, according to sources familiar with the notices. Some GOP lawmakers are also considering whether to approve tougher penalties for leaking…
In July 2003, Scooter Libby, Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States, knowingly and intentionally leaked the identity of a covert CIA operative who had worked for years investigating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to numerous reporters. He compromised not only the safety of individual American intelligence agents, not only an entire intelligence gathering aparatus, but the safety of each and every American.
This is the big nightmare. The one with which the Bush administration scared the nation into a war with Iraq--tearists could get a WMD and kill millions of Americans!
And Scooter Libby, the Chief of Staff of the Vice President of the United States, leaks classified information and makes that nightmare that much more possible. Intentionally. And why? To punish Joe Wilson. Because he wrote an Op/Ed piece that Karl Rove didn't like. For political purposes.
And, don't forget, Libby just didn't intentionally leak classified information--he was authorized to do it.
And don't be confused. This wasn't whistleblowing. There was no noble purpose. These guys hadn't wrestled with some internal conflict between their desire to behave lawfully and their innate sense of what is right or wrong.
They broke the law, compromised national security, and put you and your family's lives at risk for no other reason than it gave them a hard-on to totally ratfuck some guy who said something they didn't like. The Chief of Staff of the Vice President was authorized to leak classified information which might get people killed, might get millions of Americans killed, for no other reason than to wreck Plame's career, fuck up Wilson's marriage, and intimidate critics of this administration.
These Bush jokers leaked highly classified information to stop people from talking about stuff that wasn't classified.
That's how concerned they are about classified information.
Well, that's not really how unconcerned these jokers are. The White House intentionally leaked classified national security information in July of 2003, and no one--particularly not the White House--did shit about it until the CIA lodged a formal complaint and forced the Justice Department to investigate the leak. Two months later.
And how did the White House, which is so concerned about the leaks of classified information assist this incredibly important investigation? Well, they denied they had anything to do with it. Which turned out to be objectively untrue. And they also destroyed evidence pertaining to an investigation they knew had begun.
To beat it into the ground, two things:
One: if a dirty bomb or a suitcase nuke goes off in downtown Manhattan, the Bush administration was more than willing to risk those American lives to send a stupid, petty political message. And;
Two: these guys not only don't give a fuck about leaks of classified information, they encourage those leaks when it benefits them and break the law to frustrate any attempts to discover who compromised our national security.
Presidents have also long complained about leaks: Richard Nixon's infamous "plumbers" were originally set up to plug them, and he tried, but failed, to prevent publication of a classified history of the Vietnam War called the Pentagon Papers. Ronald Reagan exclaimed at one point that he was "up to my keister" in leaks.
See a pattern here? Nixon, Reagan, and Bush. Really concerned about leaks. Nixon was concerned about leaks that ultimately led to his resignation for being a criminal. Reagan was concerned about leaks, which led to congressional investigations into the widespread criminal behavior of his administration. And, now, Bush is concerned about leaks.
Gee, why do you think that is?
Because he's been breaking the law for the last five years?
Bush administration officials -- who complain that reports about detainee abuse, clandestine surveillance and other topics have endangered the nation during a time of war -- have arguably taken a more aggressive approach than other recent administrations, including a clear willingness to take on journalists more directly if necessary…
Sorry. I guess I got too partisan and emotional there! Bush administration officials have been complaining to the "liberal" media that leaks jeopardize our incredibly important torture programs, our secret prisons, and the spying on Americans.
In other words, the Bush administration is totally pissed off that somebody keeps telling journalists that Bush and his whole rotten administration keeps breaking the law.
At Langley, the CIA's security office has been conducting numerous interviews and polygraph examinations of employees in an effort to discover whether any of them have had unauthorized contact with journalists…
I guess, then, we can expect Cheney and Bush and Rove to all undergo polygraph examinations regarding whether they ordered or approved or even knew of Scooter Libby leaking highly classified national security information. I guess Bush, who is so concerned about national security leaks, will be more than happy to undergo a polygraph to determine if he authorized such a leak, or whether he knew who leaked such information when he denied any knowledge of the leaker to both the American people or to FBI investigators.
But the vice chairman of the same committee, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), complained in a letter to the national intelligence director last month that "damaging revelations of intelligence sources and methods are generated primarily by Executive Branch officials pushing a particular policy, and not by the rank-and-file employees of the intelligence agencies."
As evidence, Rockefeller points to the case of Valerie Plame, a CIA officer whose identity was leaked to the media. A grand jury investigation by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald resulted last year in the jailing of Judith Miller, then a reporter at the New York Times, for refusing to testify, and in criminal charges against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who resigned as Vice President Cheney's chief of staff. In court papers, Libby has said that his "superiors" authorized him to disclose a classified government report.
Bring it on, bitches. Let's polygraph everyone.
I'm sure the Preznit won't object. He's already told us that he had nothing to do with breaking the law. And he's telling us now that the secrecy of classified information--whether or not it has been even remotely shown to protect the American people at all--is so crucial to winning the War on Terra that government officials need to submit to polygraphs to determine their involvement in these leaks.
Fine. So be it. If it has to be done, it has to be done.
You go first, Bush. You. Then Cheney. Then Rove.
If Cheney's mea culpa put the question of blame to rest, something else he said in the same interview raised a different kind of ire among experienced hunters. He admitted that he'd had a beer at lunch on the day of the hunt—a huge taboo in the sport. No one has alleged Cheney was impaired by alcohol; the hunt took place hours after the lunch, and the accident report says no alcohol was involved…
It just kills me. One more story, as if the other ten billion weren't enough, reminds us that "[n]o one has alleged Cheney was impaired by alcohol..."
No one--except for me and people like me--has suggested that Cheney was impaired by alcohol.
It's true.
In the same way that no one suggested that there was a second shooter, maybe up on a grassy knoll.
And no one suggested that the guy shot himself.
No one has suggested that Hillary Clinton actually shot the guy in an apartment she owned and then moved the body beneath Cheney's quail.
There's a lot of things no one suggested. But there's only one thing that's been denied, without suggestion, about a billion times, in a thousand different newspapers:
Alcohol was not a factor.
No matter what no one is suggesting.
If alcohol wasn't a factor, and no one was suggesting it was, how come, in every newspaper and magazine article, and television story, in which no one is suggesting alcohol was a factor, are we, repeatedly and emphatically, told that there was no alcohol involved?
No one's suggesting it! Why are we being told it's not true?
We're not only just being told it's not true, we're being told the police have ruled it out! We're being told that, though no has suggested it, even if someone might suggest it, "the accident report says no alcohol was involved".
And, again, that's great. Case closed. Completely conclusive. That should totally satisfy anyone who has any questions about something no one has suggested.
Though, again, the accident report was a product of an interview fourteen hours after the guy got shot. It's worthless.
And I don't care. Maybe Cheney was drunk. Maybe he wasn't. Who knows? Nobody but Cheney and his "hunting" party.
But, again, if no one has suggested it, why on God's green earth does every article about this simple hunting accident keep saying that, without a doubt, and there's ample proof, and even documents to back it up, alcohol was not involved?
WASHINGTON - The lawyer accidentally shot by Vice President Dick Cheney during a hunting trip was discharged from a hospital on Friday and told reporters he was sorry for all the trouble Cheney had faced over the past week.
Harry Whittington, wearing a suit and tie, gave a brief statement and didn’t take questions. His voice was a bit raspy but strong, and he had what appeared to be a line of scarring on his upper right eyelid and scrapes on his neck…
“My family and I are deeply sorry for everything Vice President Cheney and his family have had to deal with,” he said…
Christ, how pathetic are these people? I mean, the guy’s a big GOP booster and a friend of Dead Eye Dick Cheney. But Dick Cheney shoots the guy in the face, the liver, and the heart; the guy spends three days in the ICU before having a heart attack; and he gets out of the hospital with scars on his fucking eyelids and he says, “My family and I are sorry for the pain caused to Dick Cheney from him shooting me.”
Gawd.
If the guy’s got no ill will, fine. But he apologizes???
So we should all feel sympathy for the poor Cheneys and feel terrible, ourselves, for what we, the American people, have put the poor Cheneys through?
Well, my family and I are deeply sorry that there are people like Whittington out there, who are more than willing to get shot in the face and say shit like this. Like they’re comical dwarfs getting thrown off palace balconies for the amusement of powdered and drunken aristocrats.
They hit the lawn, facedown, with a sickening thud, and apologize for being so heavy that gravity pulled them down.
Cheney also defended his decision to keep it from the public until a day after it happened.
The vice president acknowledged that Bush press secretary Scott McClellan and Bush communications adviser Dan Bartlett urged him to release information about the accident quickly. But he said he made the ultimate decision to have the owner of the Texas ranch to reveal it to a local newspaper without any official announcement from the White House…
Really? Scott McClellan and Dan Bartlett urged Cheney to release the information quickly? When did they do that? Because according to the official White House Time Line of Event, finally pulled together on Wednesday, five days after the shooting, I read this:
February 12th
6 a.m.The situation room awakens McClellan with a telephone call and informs him that Cheney was the shooter. McClellan pushes the vice president's office to inform the media quickly, he says later.
February 12th, at six a.m. is, of course, twelve hours after Cheney shot the guy in the face. And only a couple of hours before Armstrong, who didn't see anything at all, alerts the media with her eyewitness account--the "peppered" and "more bruised" than anything crapola.
But what happened before that? According to the White House timeline, on February 11th, the day Cheney shot the guy:
7:30 p.m.
The remainder of the hunting party returns to the ranch house. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card tells President Bush that there has been a hunting accident, unaware at the time that the vice president was involved.
8 p.m.
After talking with Katharine Armstrong, whose family owns the ranch and who accompanied the hunting party, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove tells Bush that Cheney has shot Whittington.
Late night
The White House situation room notifies Bush spokesman Scott McClellan of an accident in Cheney's hunting party, but not who was involved.
So, at 7:30, on the eleventh, the White House is informed about an accident in Cheney's hunting party--and, again, the White House and your liberal media pretends that no one at that time bothered to ask what exactly happened in that hunting accident involving the Vice President--and, at 8 p.m., Karl Rove tells Bush Cheney shot a guy, and then, a mere ten hours later McClellan and Bartlett urge Cheney to immediately release information to the press!
Yes, twelve hours after Cheney shoots a guy, eleven hours after Bush finds out that there has been an accident involving Cheney's hunting party, ten hours after Karl Rove tells Bush Cheney was the shooter, McClellan and Bartlett urge Cheney to immediately release information to the press!
Oh! If only Cheney had heeded McClellan's advice and immediately released information to the media twelve hours after he shot his friend in the face and two hours before he finally met with police, instead of waiting eighteen hours to have a third party, who wasn't a witness at all, talk to the press!
None of this wild, irresponsible, and hurtful speculation would ever have occurred!
But Cheney, despite his grief and concern for his face-shot friend, and the urging of a White House that makes full and rapid release of information to the public a point of pride, Cheney deferred to the rights of property owners.
It was Armstrong's property. Someone got shot in the face there. Absent some kind of claim of eminent domain, it's really her story to tell. Unless Bush wants to build a stadium on her ranch, Cheney wasn't about to fuck with her property rights.
No matter what the cost to him or his family.
Cheney said he had had a beer at lunch that day but nobody was drinking when they went back out to hunt a couple hours later. Law enforcement officials ruled out alcohol as a factor.
Just in case you were wondering, just in case you had been reading loooooony left wing blogs, your liberal media just wants to make sure you aren't confused about any possibilities that have never, ever been raised in your liberal media.
Your liberal media can't stop telling you that alcohol played no role in Dick Cheney shooting his friend in the face. Though, if you watch TV or read the papers, no one, except the looooney left on the internet has even bothered to suggest three time DUI Cheney was drinking at the time he shot his friend in the face.
Yes, a lot of people like me have come out and said they have no doubt Cheney was drunk when he shot his friend in the face with a shotgun, but neither the New York Times, nor the Washington Post, nor network television has even suggested it.
All they've done, for a week, is continually assert that alcohol played no part! And Cheney, after five days of silence, immediately told Brit Hume that he had a beer, but alcohol played no part.
Christ, if alcohol played no part, and nobody but a bunch of left wing looooneys have even suggested it, why the full court press to rule out alcohol?
You read a lot of true crime stories? If you do, you find out guilty people always spring their alibies too early. Before anyone asks.
But I don't even care about that. And I don't even care about the oft repeated, ridiculous line that "law enforcement officials ruled out alcohol as a factor."
Law enforcement officials didn't rule dick out.
They didn't talk to Cheney until fourteen hours after Cheney shot the guy. Can you imagine if you had a head-on collision, sent some guy to the ICU for a couple of days, and you refused to talk to the police for fourteen hours? And later on, on television, you said you had a beer at lunch. Ya think the cops and your liberal media would say, "We've ruled out alcohol as a factor"???
They haven't ruled anything out. They don't know and they'll never know because they didn't talk to Cheney until the next day.
Maybe Cheney was drunk. Maybe he wasn't. Who can say? Only Cheney and his "hunting" party. But nobody else can say they've ruled out alcohol as a factor.
And then Cheney says he had a beer at lunch. One beer, two beers? But alcohol wasn't a factor.
I only had two beers.
The "two beers" line has been uttered so often that it's a joke among police officers. In 20 years of patrolling highways, Virginia State Police Trooper L.L. Parker has heard that slurred lie more times than she can remember.
"I don't know of any officer out here who, if you tell them you only had two beers, they'll tell you, "Okay, then, have a nice night,' " Parker said, chuckling. "But drunks, for whatever reason, they say it all the time..."
"Two beers," said Elizabeth Wingo, a supervisor in the D.C. attorney general's office. "Everyone says that. Then they come in and blow a point-one-four."
Yes. Here's Cheney who's been busted three times for DUI, who shoots a guy in the face on a day in which he admits he had something to drink, but alcohol has been ruled out as a factor because, aside from the cops not being able to talk to Cheney for fourteen hours, Cheney told Brit Hume he only had one beer.
Maybe not two. Maybe not the oldest line of drunk people in trouble everywhere. But probably still laugh out loud funny to real cops everywhere.
Sure, there was some beer there, and I drank some beer, and later on I accidently shot a guy in the face, but I only had one.
Alcohol ruled out!
Right. I only had one beer. It came in a small can, called a keg.
And who the fuck has one beer anyway? What's the point? Christ, if you're only going to have one beer, you're not going to have one beer at all--you're going to have a Coke.
Who has one beer?
But never mind that. Who cares? What still cracks me up is this:
7:50 p.m.
The Secret Service notifies the Kenedy County Sheriff's office of the incident. The sheriff requests the chance to talk to Cheney, and arrangements are made for an interview Sunday morning.
While earlier stories reported a fuller weirder tale:
Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren said that about an hour after Cheney shot Whittington, the head of the Secret Service's local office called the Kenedy County sheriff to report the accident. "They made arrangements at the sheriff's request to have deputies come out and interview the vice president the following morning at 8 a.m. and that indeed did happen," Zahren said.
At least one deputy showed up at the ranch's front gate later in the evening and asked to speak to Cheney but was turned away by the Secret Service, Zahren said. There was some miscommunication that arrangements had already been made to interview the vice president, he said.
A guy has been shot in the face. He's been taken by ambulance to the hospital. Later, airlifted to a second hospital, where he's been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit in their trauma ward. From a gun shot.
And according to Cheney's people, and your liberal media, the cops, at the "sheriff's request" scheduled an interview the following morning. Which is, as you all know, pretty standard for a shooting which sends a guy to the hospital. Near death.
But even though the sheriff requested an interview the next day, for some crazy reason, one of his deputies missed the memo and showed up that night!
Apparently, Cheney would have been more than happy to talk to the cops right then and there, but the sheriff, at his request, would prefer to meet with Cheney the next day, and then some loose canon of a deputy just drove out to talk to the Vice President on his own!
There's one in every department. Some guy who's seen Dirty Harry or Murder At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue too many times. Maybe the guy was frustrated that Vince Foster's murderers walked scott free.
Whatever. This deputy, despite this sheriff's request, despite the alleged shooter being the Vice President of the United States, this deputy tried to take matters into his own hands.
But the Secret Service stopped him. Though it's a little unclear why. Again, according to early reports:
At least one deputy showed up at the ranch's front gate later in the evening and asked to speak to Cheney but was turned away by the Secret Service, Zahren said. There was some miscommunication that arrangements had already been made to interview the vice president, he said.
I've read that a couple of times, and I'm still not sure I understand it.
"There was some miscommunication"...
What was it?
According to the White House, early in the evening, the Secret Service notified the sheriff that Cheney had shot his friend in the face. According to the White House, the sheriff, at his insistence, scheduled an appointment the following morning to talk to Cheney. Later on in the evening, a deputy shows up and wants to talk to Cheney about shooting his friend in the face.
The Secret Service turns the guy away.
We're told that there was some kind of "miscommunication".
In the sheriff's department???
Some rinky dink sheriff's department in Texas--even if it's a huge rinky dink sheriff's department in Texas--gets notified that the Vice President of the United States just shot a guy and the fucking deputies aren't clear on what the plan is???
Some deputies think, "Well, what the heck, I'm in the neighborhood, I might as well drop in on the Vice President and see what he has to say"???
Or was the confusion with the Secret Service? They thought deputies would be coming by the next day and, therefore, turned away deputies that night?
And you can see how that could innocently happen. The Secret Service is well aware that Cheney just shot a guy--they were the ones, allegedly that notified the sheriff. And they know that the sheriff needs to talk to Cheney. But when a deputy shows up on Saturday night, they turn him away. They refuse to let him talk to the Vice President.
Because, I guess, they thought deputies would be coming the following morning. And the Cheney people, despite the urging of McClellan and Bartlett, didn't let the Secret Service know that Cheney would be more than happy to talk to the cops as soon as possible, since the shooting of his friend in the face was a simple hunting accident and alcohol was definitely not involved.
Though, that's weird. Because, again, the Secret Service were well aware of what happened. And since, as far as I know, the Secret Service are all wired and mic'ed. You know, if a deputy shows up, when he's not supposed to, in a car that clearly identifies him as a deputy, and he's got identification showing him to be a deputy, which can easily be confirmed, and that deputy wants to talk about something that the Secret Service knows has happened and which the Vice President needs to talk about--why send the guy away?
Why not just call the Cheney compound or whatever it was and say, "Hey, the cops are here." Why not just invite the guy in for a cup of coffee and a four minute interview with the Vice President? It was, after all, a simple hunting accident.
With no alcohol involved.
Cheney could have talked to the guy. Told him the simple, understandable circumstances, signed an autograph, and the renegade deputy would have been on his way in ten minutes.
Why didn't Cheney talk to him? What was the "miscommunication"? How, in light of the small sheriff's office, and the thoroughly wired Secret Service could there possibly be a "miscommunication"?
Hunting accidents do happen. They happen every fall, every year. Though, nearly every hunter I know tells me they only happen because someone is an idiot.
Whatever.
But, again, why, if it was a simple hunting accident, it this story so fucked up and weird? Why is it so conflicted? Why is it so bizarre?
The only answer is: because it's not true.
True stories are really easy to tell. And people tell them right away. And they keep telling them the same way.
Bullshit stories change from day to day. Like this one. And the stories change as people point out what's stupid about them.
Like this one.
And I don't know what really happened. And I don't even care. Again, aside from the guy who got shot in the face, it's just been funny to me. It would be irrelevant.
Nobody elected Cheney Vice Safe Hunter. We, Americans, don't pay Cheney to hunt responsibly.
If he wants to go out every weekend, with his girlfriend, Pamela Willeford, get loaded, and shoot the shit out of the skyline, occassionally hitting close friends, I couldn't care less.
That's nothing compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars he's cost Americans and the tens of thousands of Americans he's gotten killed, crippled or wounded with his bullshit war.
Christ, a weekend Dick Cheney only puts one of his friends in the hospital is a weekend all Americans should feel grateful for.
What's amazing to me is that it took an entire week for the White House and Cheney and Republicans in general to get their bullshit story straight for a simple hunting accident. And after taking an entire week, with conflicting stories and objectively untrue statements and bizarre unbelievable theories, after all of that, we're told it was just a simple hunting accident and anyone who suggested anything else was just crazy!
Wild speculation!
A simple hunting accident takes five seconds to explain. You can explain it right away.
Even if you're the Vice President of the United States.
Nothing, that is simple and straightforward, and legal, and blameless takes five days to explain.
Nothing.
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