Bush supporters' aftermath thread II

2) Cheney was falling down drunk and delayed announcement until he had sobered up. (In fact, Cheney stated that he had one beer at lunch that day, hours before the incident, and already the spin is yeah right. Who has one beer?)

Cheney should have called a press conference before calling for an ambulance of course. I don't think it would have made any difference.

Silly false choice fallacy, and you perhaps understand that. It takes 22 hours to call an ambulance? The vice is incapable of doing more than a single task at a time without coming cognitively or emotionally unglued?

Transcript:

QUESTION: You asked him about alcohol being consumed on premises.

HUME: I did.

QUESTION: And what did he say about that?

HUME: He said he had a beer at lunch and that had been many hours earlier. And it was dusk, around 5:00 p.m., when this incident happened. And he said that, you know, they had lunch out in the field, a barbecue, and he had a beer. But you said you don't hunt with people who have been drinking. He said no one was drinking. He said they went back to the ranch afterwards, took a break after that, and went out about 3:00 and so you're four or five hours distanced from the last alcohol that he consumed. And he said no one was drinking, not he nor anyone else.

This morning, ThinkProgress posed some questions the media should ask about the role of alcohol in the accident.

UPDATE: Mr. Whittington's doctors "had no comment on whether Whittington's blood alcohol level had been tested after the accident."

UPDATE II: On Tuesday, Ms. Armstrong told the LA Times that the hunters drank "Dr. Pepper" at lunch:

The party of 11 hunters set out in two trucks Saturday morning, driving around the mesquite-dotted property and shooting quail until about 12:30 p.m., said Anne Armstrong, co-owner of the ranch. Then they broke for a lunch of antelope, jicama salad and camp bread, washed down with Dr. Pepper.

3) The whole incident was set up to send a message to Scooter Libby to keep his mouth shut.

The law enforcement officers who did meet with the Vice President immediately following the accident said no alcohol was involved either on the part of the victim or on the part of the Vice President. That statement would be sufficient for normal people.

Law enforcement wouldn't have checked his BAC unless they had reason to suspect he was impaired. If they didn't suspect he was impaired, they wouldn't have checked his BAC.

So the fact that they didn't check his BAC (which I assume they did not), does not mean he was impaired, but it will certainly provide fodder for those who would like to think he was impaired.

The law enforcement officers who did meet with the Vice President immediately following the accident said no alcohol was involved either on the part of the victim or on the part of the Vice President. That statement would be sufficient for normal people

Quote:

Law enforcement wouldn't have checked his BAC unless they had reason to suspect he was impaired. If they didn't suspect he was impaired, they wouldn't have checked his BAC.

So the fact that they didn't check his BAC (which I assume they did not), does not mean he was impaired, but it will certainly provide fodder for those who would like to think he was impaired.

Let's see. One of the first questions any law enforcement officer would ask on the scene of a hunting accident is, 'who has been drinking today?'

To which Cheney would have had to reply, 'I have been, earlier.' Either that or lie to the cops, by his own admission he had been drinking that day.

After which he would have recieved a BAC test immediately.

But, of course, we all know that this never happened at all, because no cops were allowed to talk to him until the next day.

Cycloptichorn

- more photos from abu ghraib (why do they hate us?)

"As we look at a couple of the photographs, let's remind people why these are so inappropriate. Under U.S. military law and practice and procedure, you simply cannot take photographs -- as we're going to show you some of them right now. You cannot take photographs of people in detention, in humiliating positions, positions that are abusive in any way, shape or form. The only pictures that are ever allowed of people in U.S. military detention would be pictures for documentation purposes. And, clearly, these pictures are not that. That is the whole issue that has been at the root of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, that it was abusive, the practices in which soldiers engaged in."

Thursday -- February 16, 2006

[POLL}[i]What do you think we should be talking about instead of Cheney's hunting accident?[/i] __ Iran and nukes __ Newly released Abu Ghraib images __ The Olympics __ Scooter Libby and PlameGate __ Saddam trial __ UN report on Gitmo __ Katrina report __ Something else [/POLL}[/list][b]THIS IS STILL IN THE NEWS?[/b] The Dick Cheney hunting accident happened on Saturday. We found out about it on Sunday. We're still hearing about it on Thursday. Why? What have we learned since Sunday? One thing. A small pellet migrated to Harry Wittington's heart. That's it. Oh, and we learned that the vice-president had a beer at lunch. Big deal. So now we have Al Franken pushing the idea that maybe Cheney was drunk when he shot Harry. We also have CNN running headlines about some "Cult of Secrecy" at the white House. Democrats are wondering out loud whether or not Dick Cheney should resign. I'll tell you what's going on here. At some level, probably the vice-presidential level, the decision was made to release the story of the hunting accident to the local Corpus Christi newspaper in Texas rather than to the Washington press corps. Was this a deliberate move to tweak the elite Washington press mob? Maybe so. I would sure like to think so. Sometimes you get the idea that these people sitting out there in the White House briefing room believe that all of our national political news begins and ends with them. They know they were slighted, and they're furious. They're going to retaliate .. they're going to show the vice-president and the White House who runs the media show around these parts. How DARE the vice-president bypass them with the story of this shooting! Then ... let's twist the knife just a bit more. Cheney then gives an interview to the Fox News Channel. You can't imagine how these White House press darlings hate Fox News. Remember those recent studies which showed that Fox News Channel was as close to unbiased and centrist as you can get within the national media? That didn't help the reputation of Fox News Channel with the mainstream (leftist) media. Again .. how dare he? Brit Hume managed to get in a bit of a zinger also. As Hume was waiting at the White House to conduct the interview, one of the network reporters came up and asked him how he had gotten the exclusive, and whether it was because of what people perceived as a pro-Bush bias at the news channel. Hume's response? Nope, the administration just wanted Cheney's exclusive on the cable news network that would reach the most people. Zing! Last evening on CNN Jack Cafferty was referring to Fox News Channel as "The "F" Word News Channel." Now that's class! The Washington press corps is sending a message. Don't forget who runs the media show around here. [b]CAN YOU BELIEVE HILLARY?[/b] I stood slack-jawed yesterday when the Media Darling, Hillary Clinton, positioned herself in front of the cameras to announce to her anxiously waiting myrmidons that this White House just isn't forthcoming on the Cheney incident and other issues of importance to the American public. OK, Let's see. We have the Vince Foster episode. Hillary's own aides were in Vince Foster's office going through his files immediately after Foster's body was found. Those files were delivered to Hillary. They've never been seen since. How's that for being forthcoming? And then we have that matter of the Rose Law Firm billing records. The Congress subpoenaed them from Hillary. She claimed she didn't have them. She said they probably have been destroyed. Then, after two years of dodging this legal subpoena, they're found in Hillary's private office in the living quarters of the White House. They're found with her handwriting and her fingerprints all over them. Hillary dodges a subpoena for two years, and then she stands before the American public to bitch because the Bush White House hasn't been "forthcoming." Amazing. We can only hope that the majority of Americans, and a good number of American women, can see through this phony and dangerous politician's lies and distortions. [b]TORTURE AT GITMO?[/b] Yesterday we told you that the U.N. Human Rights Commission had made a finding [pdf] that the United States was using "torture" at the detainee center at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba. Now .. are we talking about driving wood splinters up under fingernails? No. What about breaking fingers or toes? Nope. Not that either. It seems that we were using light and temperature in naughty ways. How do you use light? You use light to keep people awake. That's torture. Gitmo is hot too. Maybe they denied the prisoners air conditioning. Would that be torture? The word "torture" is no longer a word used to describe treatment of a prisoner. It is now a word used as a weapon against the United States and its efforts to fight Islamic radicals. This morning I listened to Robin Oakley, the British political editor for CNN, talk about the findings of this phony UN body. Oakley said: "Now we're going to see pressure to have the U.S. close Guantanamo." So, what else is new? Oakley also mentioned the light and the temperature, but he never mentioned force feeding. That's right ... force-feeding One of the elements of torture mentioned by the U.N. at Guantanamo was the force-feeding of detainees who are un hunger strikes. So, according to the U.N., if a detainee tries to kill himself, and you take a measure to save his life, that constitutes torture. Message: Don't take anything the U.N. or the U.N. Human Rights Commission has to say about torture seriously. [b]MORE ABU GHRAIB[/b] It has been awhile, hasn't it, since we've seen pictures of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. As you know, the anti-American mainstream media loves Abu Ghraib. They love any chance they can get to bash the military, embarrass the president and put pictures of supposedly "tortured" prisoners on the front page. Here we go again. Only this time, it's the Australian TV network, SBS. The photos they are showing are from several years ago, in 2003. Many of the pictures show Charles Graner, Jr., who is doing 10 years in a military prison for his role in the debacle. Some of the photos even allegedly show Charles Graner having sex with Lynndie England, who is serving a 3-year prison term for her role. Mercifully, those pictures weren't released. (Give them time.) So how long before all of these pictures wind up on the cover of the New York Times? Shouldn't take more than a few days. Remember, according to the media bias template: the Abu Ghraib scandal must be mentioned over and over...it can never be forgotten. It is their addiction...they are fixated on continuing the promotion of what happened. And somebody tell the Aussies to burn those sex photos. Please. There are just some things we don't need to see.

... with Lynndie England, who is serving a 3-year prison term for her role.

Quote:

... with Lynndie England, who is serving a 3-year prison term for her role.

In other news, Gitmo detainees are still imprisoned. For three years now, and for an indefinite time to come. 2 percent of those allegedly had connections to Al Qaida.

Sorry, I misremembered the figure. 8 percent. Thanks for pointing that out, Tico.

Right.

So, that leaves 92 percent without Al Qaida connections. Maybe Gitmo should finally be shut down, after all...