http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/02/16/MNGS3H9J3N1.DTL&type=printable
"But some Democrats and competing broadcasters charged that Cheney chose to speak only with Fox News because of a perception that the cable channel is sympathetic to the Republican administration. They called for the vice president to hold a news conference with the rest of the media.
"Now that he feels forced to talk, he wants to restrict the discussion to a friendly news outlet, guaranteeing no hard questions from the press corps," Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said in a statement.
On CNN, commentator Jack Cafferty called the interview "a little bit like Bonnie interviewing Clyde. ... I mean, running over there to the Fox network -- talk about seeking a safe haven."
Ahhh...poor little CNN...Lost the scoop!
If you were Cheney, which network would you pick? Fox or the other one that does the on-the-hour Bill Clinton hangnail report?
Yes , but if you are so partisan that you cant find anything wrong with this guys behavior, then theres a big batch of Kool Aid waiting here
f-man, I think your conclusion is premature.
FOX had a panel after Cheney was on with his statements and the interview. They were talking about this act being the "defining moment" of Cheneys career. I think thats funny that, forever more, no matter what Cheney does, he shall be known no longer as "Darth Vader" but as ELMER FUDD.
Well, that clears that up.
Karl Rove's Connection to the Cheney Shooting
Karl Rove's Connection to the Cheney Shooting
by Arianna Huffington
02.15.2006
Today's New York Times piece about the "palpable" tension between Bush's and Cheney's staffs -- exacerbated but not created by the shooting story fallout -- contains a glaring omission: not a single word about Karl Rove. Yet the handling of the shooting incident has been a Turd Blossom special since the beginning.
According to the White House, Rove was one of the first people in the administration informed about it. After being notified by Andy Card that there had been a hunting accident involving Cheney, Rove picked up the phone and called ranch owner Katharine Armstrong.
He didn't have to call 411 to get the number. Turns out that Rove and Armstrong go way back. As reported in the New Yorker [via Josh Marshall], Katharine Armstrong's dad, beef industry titan Tobin Armstrong, helped finance Rove's first business, an Austin-based direct mail firm called Karl Rove + Company. The 2003 article also mentions a hunting trip to the Armstrong Ranch Rove and Bill Frist had planned (though later canceled for appearance's sake after Frist supplanted Trent Lott in a Rove-engineered coup). So Rove was definitely not unfamiliar with the "scene of the crime."
President Bush is also pals with Armstrong. An August 2005, story in the New York Times has the president describing her as a "friend from South Texas" who was staying with Mr. and Mrs. Bush at the Crawford ranch [via Will Bunch].
But back to the Boy Genius, who has another, even more interesting, connection to Katherine Armstrong and the Cheney shooting: his alleged long-running affair with her business partner, Karen Johnson.
Armstrong and Johnson are lobbyists who have managed to score some lucrative assignments lobbying the Bush administration, including a successful effort at getting the Dept. of Agricultural to make a deal with their client Prionic, a drug company that makes tests for mad cow disease.
Johnson and Rove have long been the subject of gossip and raised-eyebrows deep in the heart of Texas. "For years," a Lone Star State source told me, "it's been an article of faith in Austin that Karen and Karl are an item, and that their affair helped Karen land some plum appointments and clients."
So take the claims that the Bush and Cheney camps are at odds over the shooting with a grain of salt. Karl Rove's fingerprints are all over this story. And perhaps a bit of his DNA as well.
woiyo wrote:Ahhh...poor little CNN...Lost the scoop!
It ain't a scoop when the story is already days old, dude. The Texas paper got the scoop.
A (Shotgun) Blast from My GOP Past
A (Shotgun) Blast from My GOP Past
by Arianna Huffington
02.15.2006
The Cheney shooting story has hit me like a mnemonic (shotgun) blast from my past. After all, it wasn't that long ago that I was married into a Texas clan that did more than its share of hunting, wildcatting, and rubbing elbows with the GOP elite of the Lone Star State.
Pulling out my slightly dusty Texas rolodex, I've begun making calls to some of my old friends -- many of whom, after all, did dance at my wedding -- and have been surprised by how many of them are more than eager to talk (and speculate) about what really happened this weekend at the Armstrong Ranch.
The first thing I'm hearing from everyone I speak to is that the hunting community in Texas is near unanimous in its feeling that the story being put out by the White House and Katherine Armstrong just doesn't hold water -- that Whittington's injuries are not consistent with the "official story." Cheney had to be much closer to Whittington when he "peppered" him than the 30 yards being claimed.
For more on this check out Josh Marshall
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/ and Firedoglake
http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/ It's everything you ever wanted to know about birdshot, pellet spread, and the relative merits of firing a 28-gauge shotgun.
The hunters in Texas I've spoken to are also up in arms over the shadow this incident has cast upon their sport -- even aside from the recklessness exhibited by the VP in swinging around into a setting sun and aiming low enough to shoot Whittington in the face.
"This isn't real hunting," one longtime sportsman told me. "This is a Six Flags amusement park version. It's playtime with loaded weapons. Driving around blasting clip-winged birds raised in pens that have been flushed out by ranch employees isn't exactly the stuff of Hemingway is it?"
Actually, given the latest indications of pre-shoot drinks
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/15/accident-alcohol/ and the hints of extra-marital hijinx
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/was-cheney-hiding-his-lew_b_15705.html it feels more and more like the stuff of Updike. Or Kind Hearts and Coronets.
When I'm old and fat and balding I hope some hot younger woman wants to go play shoot the birdie with me.
Cheney Shoots a Texas Liberal
Cheney Shoots a Texas Liberal
by Molly Ivins
02.15.2006
Of course the jokes are flying all over Texas--what's the fine for shooting a lawyer?--and so forth. Dick-Cheney-shooting-Harry-Whittington is fraught, as they say, with irony. It's not as though the ground in Texas is littered with liberal Republicans.
I think the vice president winged the only one we've got.
Not that I accuse Harry Whittington of being an actual liberal--only by Texas Republican standards, and that sets the bar about the height of a matchbook. Nevertheless, Whittington is seriously civilized, particularly on the issues of crime, punishment and prisons. He served on both the Texas Board of Corrections and on the bonding authority that builds prisons. As he has often said, prisons do not curb crime, they are hothouses for crime: "Prisons are to crime what greenhouses are to plants."
In the day, whenever there was an especially bad case of new-ignoramus-in-the-legislature--a "lock 'em all up and throw away the key" type--the senior members used to send the prison-happy, tuff-on-crime neophyte to see Harry Whittington, a Republican after all, for a little basic education on the cost of prisons.
When Whittington was the chairman of Texas Public Finance Authority, he had a devastating set of numbers on the demand for more, more, more prison beds. As Whittington was wont to point out, the only thing prisons are good for is segregating violent people from the rest of society, and most of them belong in psychiatric hospitals to begin with. The severity of sentences has no effect on crime.
Texas still keeps the nonviolent, the retarded, senior citizens, etc. locked up for ridiculous periods--all at taxpayer expense. If we could ever get to where we spend as much per pupil on education as we do per prisoner, this state would take off like a rocket. In 2003, we spend nearly $15,000 per prisoner, while average per-pupil spending was just over $8,000.
I am not trying to make a big deal out of a simple hunting accident for partisan purposes--just thought it was a good chance to pay tribute to old Harry, a thoroughly decent man. However, I was offended by the never-our-fault White House spin team. Cheney adviser Mary Matalin said of her boss, "He was not careless or incautious [and did not] violate of any of the [rules]. He didn't do anything he wasn't supposed to do." Of course he did, Ms. Matalin, he shot Harry Whittington.
Which brings us to one of the many paradoxes of the Bush administration, which claims to be creating "the responsibility society." It's hard to think of a crowd less likely to take responsibility for anything they have done or not done than this bunch. They're certainly good at preaching responsibility to others--and blaming other people for everything that goes wrong on their watch.
Of course the Cheney shooting was an accident.
But is it an accident if your home and your life are destroyed by the flood following a hurricane? Especially if the flood was caused by failed levees, a government responsibility?
Is it an accident if you are born with a clubfoot and your parents are too poor to pay for the operation to fix it? Is there any societal responsibility in such a case?
Is it an accident when your manufacturing job gets shipped overseas and all you can find to replace it is a low-wage job at the big-box store with no health insurance, and your kid breaks his leg, and you can't pay the bill, so you have to declare bankruptcy under a new law that leaves you broke for good, with no chance of ever getting out of debt? Or was all of that caused by deliberate government policy?
Cheney is much given to lecturing us about taking responsibility. When and where does societal responsibility come in?
Cheney has a curious, shifting history on issues of blame and responsibility. He was vice chair of the congressional committee that spent 11 months investigating the Iran-Contra affair and author of its minority report. As John W. Dean highlights in a recent essay, the 500-page majority report concluded the entire affair "was characterized by pervasive dishonesty and inordinate secrecy." But Cheney's report said the Reagan administration's repeated breaking of the law was "mistakes ... were just that--mistakes in judgment and nothing more."
Those of you who saw Cheney's interview with Jim Lehrer last week may recall the passage on Darfur that ended with this:
Lehrer: "It's still happening. There are now 2 million people homeless."
Cheney: "Still happening, correct."
Lehrer: "Hundreds of thousands of people have died, and--so you're satisfied the U.S. is doing everything it can do?"
Cheney: "I am satisfied we're doing everything we can do."
His head still tilts over more to the right when he lies.
Paul Hipp: Listen To Cheney Sing At Folsom State Prison
Paul Hipp: Listen To Cheney Sing At Folsom State Prison:
http://cheneyplaysfolsom.cf.huffingtonpost.com/
BBB
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060216/D8FQDTIOQ.html
"SARITA, Texas (AP) - The sheriff's department closed its investigation Thursday into Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of a hunting partner and said no charges will be filed.
The Kenedy County Sheriff's Department issued a report that largely supports the vice president's account of the weekend accident that wounded 78-year-old lawyer Harry Whittington.
Whittington, interviewed in the hospital, assured investigators no one was drinking when the accident occurred and everyone was wearing bright orange safety gear, according to the report.
Sheriff's dispatcher Diana Mata, speaking for the department, said the case is closed and no charges will be filed. She said Sheriff Ramon Salinas would have no comment on the report."
Doesn't that just PISS you right off!
CASE CLOSED!
sorry to disapoint woiyo honey, but cheney iws doing as well in the court of public (and washingto) opinion.... doesn't that just piss you off.....
cjhsa wrote:When I'm old and fat and balding I hope some hot younger woman wants to go play shoot the birdie with me.
I thought you were already old, fat, and balding ... Dunno, that was my mental picture of you CJ
Anon
Let's face it ... a bunch of old farts got drunk and went out hunting. One of them got shot! Happens all the time!
Anon
woiyo wrote:Whittington, interviewed in the hospital, assured investigators ... everyone was wearing bright orange safety gear
You'd think that would have given Mr. Cheney a clue there was something other than quail in sight.
Dumb and dumber.
Oh yeah, it's already a movie.
Maybe Cheney thought it was a giant quail cleverly sporting orange protective gear.
