VP Cheney shoots man in Texas while hunting

Good work Calleigh!

snood wrote:

Ballistic forensics is pretty solid science, don't you think?

Yeah, and ought to give a sense for the distance, based on the gauge of the gun, the load fired, the choke, and the length of the barrel. So it ought to be a fairly easy determination what the true distance is.

Ticomaya wrote:

snood wrote:

Ballistic forensics is pretty solid science, don't you think?

Yeah, and ought to give a sense for the distance, based on the gauge of the gun, the load fired, the choke, and the length of the barrel. So it ought to be a fairly easy determination what the true distance is.

I don't know if you're being intentionally obtuse, not paying attention to the news, or just not really trying that hard, but I'll try again. Reports have already established that the impact occured after a much shorter distance than Mr Cheney alleged. The gauge of shotgun, the type of shot simply couldn't have had the kind of penetration and damage if the shot had traveled 30 yards - 90 feet. There were just too many individual BB hits on the man's body in much too small an area for that to have been true.

What would Cheney have to gain by lying? If he shot the man from 30 feet away instead of 30 yards, it brings much more sharply into question whether he was negligent at the time, and whether his mental clarity was as it should have been. These are not leaps of deduction, tico. They are little, measured steps that anyone who wasn't so invested in defending him could make.

If you're going to ask now for me to produce for you some verification of controversy about the distance of the shot, don't bother. If you are interested in the truth of the matter, and not just in kneejerking to the defense of any and everything that Bush and his cronies do, you are a bright enough person to find those things by yourself. They're not hard to find.

Along with San Miguel's report, investigators also released a two-page supplemental report prepared by Salinas, who learned of a "possible hunting accident" from Captain Charles Kirk around 5:30 PM Saturday. About ten minutes later, Salinas was called by a Secret Service agent who reported that the accident at the Armstrong Ranch "involved Vice-President Cheney." Salinas then contacted Ramiro Medellin, a former Kenedy County sheriff who works at the 50,000-acre ranch. Medellin, Salinas reported, told him, "This in fact is an accident," adding that he had spoken with "some of the people in the hunting party who were eyewitnesses and that they all said it was definitely a hunting accident." After speaking with Medellin, Salinas apparently believed that there was no need for further investigation that night. He then contacted San Miguel and directed his deputy to arrive at the Armstrong Ranch the following morning at 8 AM to interview Cheney and other witnesses.

It would be stupid of the Democrats to focus too much on this false issue. Cheney's mishap has nothing to do with his role as Vice-president. It's a private matter. I suspect republicans would, or should, like to have the press focus on this minor matter as a distraction from the Republicans FAR MORE egregious failings. But the press doesn't care so long as the public is interested.