So, today Bwana Dick goes and makes his late apology/explanation for shooting his buddy in the face:
Vice President Cheney accepted responsibility today for the accidental shooting of a 78-year-old man in a hunting accident last weekend, saying that watching his friend fall to the ground bleeding after he was injured was an "image I'll never get out of my mind."
"You can't blame anybody else," Cheney said in an interview with Fox News Channel. "I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend. It's a moment I'll never forget."
Cheney said that after he shot Harry Whittington on Saturday afternoon at a Texas ranch, he ran over to him and said, "I had no idea that you were there. He didn't respond."my emphasis
Wait a minute...Ol' Deadeye Dick says that Whittington was unresponsive? That hardly squares with the account given by the "ranch" owner, Katharine Armstrong, designated spokesperson for the 28-Gauge Dick:
Armstrong, owner of the Armstrong Ranch where the accident occurred, said Whittington was bleeding after he was shot and Cheney was very apologetic.
"It broke the skin," she said of the shotgun pellets. "It knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn't get in his eyes or anything like that. my emphasis
There's something wrong here, either Whittington was conscious and responsive, or he wasn't. The degree that Bwana Dick will go not to tell the truth is pretty impressive, but here he may be letting a small kernal of truthiness out to perhaps obscure other questions like was alcohol involved and who was that other woman and what's her relationship to the Veep who can't shoot straight?
Broke the skin right on down to the heart, which in turn caused a minor myocardial infarction (heart attack). And a heart attack is where part of the heart muscle DIES. Sounds like the wound was reasonably serious to me.
One of the ten commandments of of shooting is to always know what is beyond your target. I am sure that Dickless as a "good republikan" knows all those rules by heart.
What I really want to know is what sort of bird shot he was using for quail hunting? They are small birds and usually you use an upland bird load of number 7 1/2 shot. Lots of little pellets with very low weight at about 1300 feet persecond muzzle velocity. They lose velocity very quickly as they spread out very fast. Usually out of the 280 some pellets depending on manufacturer, you only have about 70% of them pattern inside a thirty inch circle at 35 yards with full choke. No one uses full choke for upland game hunting unless they really want to shred the bird. As in you don't have anything left to eat. How the heck did one of those pellets penetrate the clothing, then the skin, then the muscle, bone and cartilage to get to the heart?
He was concious and talking or unconcious and unresponsive? He was fine and then one of the pellets penetrated heart muscle and caused an M.I.??? WTF! Some big time lying here. Time to subpoena Mrs. Armstrong, the hunting group, the Sectret Service detail and VP Dickless. Who was drinking, when, and how did the shooting take place? This smells like BS.
posted by: MMichaelAK on 02.15.06 at 09:03 PM [permalink]
I actually watched some of Fox News last night, and not that they ever get anything right, but they usually skew things in favor of the administration. They said last night that the "pellets" in Whittington were 5mm in diameter. 5mm?!?!? That's not bird shot.
posted by: bolts on 02.16.06 at 08:56 AM [permalink]
78 ain't no spring chicken. Just about any sort of injury can turn serious.
But yeah, all these conflicting damage reports and "eyewitness" accounts got a stank to 'em...!
all these conflicting damage reports and "eyewitness" accounts got a stank to 'em...!
But as any good police detective will tell you, this is evidence that they're not cooking the story. It's natural for different witnesses to a traumatic event to have different recollections of exactly what happened and in what order. It's when the stories all line up neatly that police get suspicious.
BTW, if you listened to the doctor's news conference, he didn't say the pellet hit the heart. He said it moved to the heart, meaning it was somewhere else first.
posted by: Gillford on 02.16.06 at 01:49 PM [permalink]
Just remember - Fox couldn't get the facts straight if they were suited to fit THEM. Correctly, the Doctors did say that the pellet did move to Mr. Whittington's heart - it was not lodged there as a result of the blast.
What is definately fucked though... the range and angle of the shot. The shot, from some basic backyard ballistics - tells anyone with a reasonable hunting skill set, that there is no way in hell Bwana Dick could have shot Harry from 30 yards. $9,000 Italian hand-made shotgun or not - the pattern is not possible - as evidenced by the pictures of Mr. Whittington, and by the angle of 'attack' on the blast itself. This lends to the theory I've seen pop up recently that Mr. Whittington may have been lower than Mr. Cheney - ie; on his knees - as it were. *(I'm not buying into conspiracy theory)* I do not think there was much common sense involved here - if any at all.
Secondly, if Mr. Whittington got hit with over 200 + pellets (the round used - Remington is loaded with 262 # 7 1/2 shot)- again, no way in hell could he have been 30 yards away. At 30 yards, a 28 Ga 7 1/2 shot pellet is travelling at around 66 FPS. A quality hunting jacket - or at least one that I have, is made of fairly heavy canvas and cotton duck. At 30 yards, that BB is not going to penetrate that coat, unless by some miracle it entered through a faulty seam (made in China, perhaps?) or he did not have one on at the time.
These are conclusions I have come to. Aside from the sherrif's dept being turned away that night from doing their jobs (Jo's "wholly owned subsidary" point), no Blood or Urine toxicology sample of any type was taken. Well, this befundles me.
Then, to have the balls to say "we made an appointment for 8 a.m. the next morning" - is beyond the pale.
Investigate more? Sure. If you like running face first into cement block walls - go right ahead. Texas is as corrupt as the White House and Congress. If you haven't figured that out yet, then I have a couple bridges for sale....
posted by: Barndog on 02.20.06 at 04:23 AM [permalink]
