Then he shot his asshole buddy in the face and heart with TWO shots
from his double barrel shotgun.

Cheney: "I had a beer at lunch."

VIDEO DOWNLOAD: CHENEY CONFESSING TO ALCOHOL BEFORE AND AFTER
SHOOTING!
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Brit-Hume-Cheney-SHooting.wmv
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/8559.php

"By tomorrow it will be 'Dick Cheney blew his head off at the dinner
table'. Makes you think Cheney shot this guy on purpose."
-Bill Maher, MSNBC Hardball
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/msnbc_hb_maher_on_cheney_060214a.wmv
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/msnbc_hb_maher_on_cheney_060214a.mov
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/8559.php

MSNBC VIDEO DOWNLOAD: CHENEY BLOWS LAWYER'S HEAD CLEAN OFF
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/8519.php

=======================================

Full transcript of Cheney interview

Wednesday, February 15, 2006; Posted: 7:29 p.m. EST (00:29 GMT)

(CNN) -- The following is a transcript released by Vice President
Dick Cheney's office of his interview by Fox News' Brit Hume
conducted Wednesday. It was Cheney's first public comment since
accidentally shooting and wounding a friend during a hunting trip on
Sunday.

Question: Mr. Vice President, how is Mr. Whittington?

Cheney: Well, the good news is he's doing very well today. I talked
to him yesterday after they discovered the heart problem, but it
appears now to have been pretty well resolved and the reporting today
is very good.

Question: How did you feel when you heard about that?

Cheney: Well, it's a great relief. But I won't be, obviously, totally
at ease until he's home. He's going to be in the hospital,
apparently, for a few more days, and the problem, obviously, is that
there's always the possibility of complications in somebody who is
78, 79 years old. But he's a great man, he's in great shape, good
friend, and our thoughts and prayers go out to he and his family.

Question: How long have you known him?

Cheney: I first met him in Vail, Colorado, when I worked for Gerry
Ford about 30 years ago, and it was the first time I'd ever hunted
with him.

Question: Would you describe him as a close friend, friendly
acquaintance, what --

Cheney: No, an acquaintance.

Question: Tell me what happened?

Cheney: Well, basically, we were hunting quail late in the day --

Question: Describe the setting.

Cheney: It's in south Texas, wide-open spaces, a lot of brush cover,
fairly shallow. But it's wild quail. It's some of the best quail
hunting anyplace in the country. I've gone there, to the Armstrong
ranch, for years. The Armstrongs have been friends for over 30 years.
And a group of us had hunted all day on Saturday --

Question: How many?

Cheney: Oh, probably 10 people. We weren't all together, but about 10
guests at the ranch. There were three of us who had gotten out of the
vehicle and walked up on a covey of quail that had been pointed by
the dogs. Covey is flushed, we've shot, and each of us got a bird.
Harry couldn't find his, it had gone down in some deep cover, and so
he went off to look for it. The other hunter and I then turned and
walked about a hundred yards in another direction --

Question: Away from him?

Cheney: Away from him -- where another covey had been spotted by an
outrider. I was on the far right --

Question: There was just two of you then?

Cheney: Just two of us at that point. The guide or outrider between
us, and of course, there's this entourage behind us, all the cars and
so forth that follow me around when I'm out there -- but bird flushed
and went to my right, off to the west. I turned and shot at the bird,
and at that second, saw Harry standing there. Didn't know he was
there --

Question: You had pulled the trigger and you saw him?

Cheney: Well, I saw him fall, basically. It had happened so fast.

Question: What was he wearing?

Cheney: He was dressed in orange, he was dressed properly, but he was
also -- there was a little bit of a gully there, so he was down a
little ways before land level, although I could see the upper part of
his body when -- I didn't see it at the time I shot, until after I'd
fired. And the sun was directly behind him -- that affected the
vision, too, I'm sure.

But the image of him falling is something I'll never be able to get
out of my mind. I fired, and there's Harry falling. And it was, I'd
have to say, one of the worst days of my life, at that moment.

Question: Then what?

Cheney: Well, we went over to him, obviously, right away --

Question: How far away from you was he?

Cheney: I'm guessing about 30 yards, which was a good thing. If he'd
been closer, obviously, the damage from the shot would have been
greater.

Question: Now, is it clear that -- he had caught part of the shot, is
that right?

Cheney: -- part of the shot. He was struck in the right side of his
face, his neck and his upper torso on the right side of his body.

Question: And you -- and I take it, you missed the bird.

Cheney: I have no idea. I mean, you focused on the bird, but as soon
as I fired and saw Harry there, everything else went out of my mind.
I don't know whether the bird went down, or didn't.

Question: So did you run over to him or --

Cheney: Ran over to him and --

Question: And what did you see? He's lying there --

Cheney: He was laying there on his back, obviously bleeding. You
could see where the shot had struck him. And one of the fortunate
things was that I've always got a medical team, in effect, covering
me wherever I go. I had a physician's assistant with me that day.
Within a minute or two he was on the scene administering first-aid.
And --

Question: And Mr. Whittington was conscious, unconscious, what?

Cheney: He was conscious --

Question: What did you say?

Cheney: Well, I said, "Harry, I had no idea you were there." And --

Question: What did he say?

Cheney: He didn't respond. He was -- he was breathing, conscious at
that point, but he didn't -- he was, I'm sure, stunned, obviously,
still trying to figure out what had happened to him. The doc was
fantastic --

Question: What did you think when you saw the injuries? How serious
did they appear to you to be?

Cheney: I had no idea how serious it was going to be. I mean, it
could have been extraordinarily serious. You just don't know at that
moment. You know he's been struck, that there's a lot of shot that
had hit him. But you don't know -- you think about his eyes.
Fortunately, he was wearing hunting glasses, and that protected his
eyes. You -- you just don't know. And the key thing, as I say,
initially, was that the physician's assistant was right there. We
also had an ambulance at the ranch, because one always follows me
around wherever I go. And they were able to get the ambulance there,
and within about 30 minutes we had him on his way to the hospital.

Question: And what did you do then? Did you get up and did you go
with him, or did you go to the hospital?

Cheney: No, I had -- I told my physician's assistant to go with him,
but the ambulance is crowded and they didn't need another body in
there. And so we loaded up and went back to ranch headquarters,
basically. By then, it's about 7:00 p.m. at night. And Harry --

Question: Did you have a sense then of how he was doing?

Cheney: Well, we're getting reports, but they were confusing. Early
reports are always wrong. The initial reports that came back from the
ambulance were that he was doing well, his eyes were open. They got
him into the emergency room at Kingsville --

Question: His eyes were open when you found him, then, right?

Cheney: Yes. One eye was open. But they got him in the emergency room
in the small hospital at Kingsville, checked him out further there,
then lifted him by helicopter from there into Corpus Christi, which
has a big city hospital and all of the equipment.

Question: So by now what time is it?

Cheney: I don't have an exact time line, although he got there
sometime that evening, 8:00 p.m., 9:00 p.m.

Question: So this is several hours after the incident?

Cheney: Well, I would say he was in Kingsville in the emergency room
probably within, oh, less than an hour after they left the ranch.

Question: Now, you're a seasoned hunter --

Cheney: I am, well, for the last 12, 15 years.

Question: Right, and so you know all the procedures and how to
maintain the proper line and distance between you and other hunters,
and all that. So how, in your judgment, did this happen? Who -- what
caused this? What was the responsibility here?

Cheney: Well, ultimately, I'm the guy who pulled the trigger that
fired the round that hit Harry. And you can talk about all of the
other conditions that existed at the time, but that's the bottom
line. And there's no -- it was not Harry's fault. You can't blame
anybody else. I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend.
And I say that is something I'll never forget.

Question: Now, what about this -- it was said you were hunting out of
vehicles. Was that because you have to have the vehicles, or was that
because that's your -- the way you chose to hunt that day?

Cheney: No, the way -- this is a big ranch, about 50,000 acres. You
cover a lot of territory on a quail hunt. Birds are oftentimes --
you're looking for coveys. And these are wild quail, they're not pen-
raised. And you hunt them -- basically, you have people out on
horseback, what we call outriders, who are looking for the quail. And
when they spot them, they've got radios, you'll go over, and say, get
down and flush the quail. So you need --

Question: So you could be a distance of miles from where you spot
quail until the next place you may find them?

Cheney: Well, usually you'll be, you know, maybe a few hundred yards.
Might be farther than that; could be a quarter of a mile.

Question: Does that kind of hunting only go forward on foot, or is it
mostly --

Cheney: No, you always -- in that part of the country, you always are
on vehicles, until you get up to where the covey is. Then you get
off -- there will be dogs down, put down; the dogs will point to
covey. And then you walk up on the covey. And as the covey flushes,
that's when you shoot.

Question: Was anybody drinking in this party?

Cheney: No. You don't hunt with people who drink. That's not a good
idea. We had --

Question: So he wasn't, and you weren't?

Cheney: Correct. We'd taken a break at lunch -- go down under an old -
- ancient oak tree there on the place, and have a barbecue. I had a
beer at lunch. After lunch we take a break, go back to ranch
headquarters. Then we took about an hourlong tour of the ranch, with
a ranch hand driving the vehicle, looking at game. We didn't go back
into the field to hunt quail until about, oh, sometime after 3:00 p.m.

The five of us who were in that party were together all afternoon.
Nobody was drinking, nobody was under the influence.

Question: Now, what thought did you give, then, to how -- you must
have known that this was -- whether it was a matter of state, or not,
was news. What thought did you give that evening to how this news
should be transmitted?

Cheney: Well, my first reaction, Brit, was not to think: I need to
call the press. My first reaction is: My friend, Harry, has been shot
and we've got to take care of him. That evening there were other
considerations. We wanted to make sure his family was taken care of.
His wife was on the ranch. She wasn't with us when it happened, but
we got her hooked up with the ambulance on the way to the hospital
with Harry. He has grown children; we wanted to make sure they were
notified, so they didn't hear on television that their father had
been shot. And that was important, too.

But we also didn't know what the outcome here was going to be. We
didn't know for sure what kind of shape Harry was in. We had
preliminary reports, but they wanted to do a CAT scan, for example,
to see how -- whether or not there was any internal damage, whether
or not any vital organ had been penetrated by any of the shot. We did
not know until Sunday morning that we could be confident that
everything was probably going to be OK.

Question: When did the family -- when had the family been informed?
About what time?

Cheney: Well, his wife -- his wife knew as he was leaving the ranch --

Question: Right, what about his children?

Cheney: I didn't make the calls to his children, so I don't know
exactly when those contacts were made. One of his daughters had made
it to the hospital by the next day when I visited. But one of the
things I'd learned over the years was first reports are often wrong
and you need to really wait and nail it down. And there was enough
variation in the reports we were getting from the hospital, and so
forth -- a couple of people who had been guests at the ranch went up
to the hospital that evening; one of them was a doctor, so he
obviously had some professional capabilities in terms of being able
to relay messages. But we really didn't know until Sunday morning
that Harry was probably going to be OK, that it looked like there
hadn't been any serious damage to any vital organ. And that's when we
began the process of notifying the press.

Question: Well, what -- you must have recognized, though, with all
your experience in Washington, that this was going to be a big story.

Cheney: Well, true, it was unprecedented. I've been in the business
for a long time and never seen a situation quite like this. We've had
experiences where the president has been shot; we've never had a
situation where the vice president shot somebody.

Question: Not since Aaron Burr.

Cheney: Not since Aaron Burr --

Question: Different circumstances.

Cheney: Different circumstances.

Question: Well, did it occur to you that sooner was -- I mean, the
one thing that we've all kind of learned over the last several
decades is that if something like this happens, as a rule sooner is
better.

Cheney: Well, if it's accurate. If it's accurate. And this is a
complicated story.

Question: But there were some things you knew. I mean, you knew the
man had been shot, you knew he was injured, you knew he was in the
hospital, and you knew you'd shot him.

Cheney: Correct.

Question: And you knew certainly by sometime that evening that the
relevant members of his family had been called. I realize you didn't
know the outcome, and you could argue that you don't know the outcome
today, really, finally.

Cheney: As we saw, if we'd put out a report Saturday night on what we
heard then -- one report came in that said, superficial injuries. If
we'd gone with a statement at that point, we'd have been wrong. And
it was also important, I thought, to get the story out as accurately
as possible, and this is a complicated story that, frankly, most
reporters would never have dealt with before, so --

Question: Had you discussed this with colleagues in the White House,
with the president, and so on?

Cheney: I did not. The White House was notified, but I did not
discuss it directly, myself. I talked to Andy Card, I guess it was
Sunday morning.

Question: Not until Sunday morning? Was that the first conversation
you'd had with anybody in the -- at the White House?

Cheney: Yes.

Question: And did you discuss this with Karl Rove at any time, as has
been reported?

Cheney: No, Karl talks to -- I don't recall talking to Karl. Karl did
talk with Katharine Armstrong, who is a good mutual friend to both of
us. Karl hunts at the Armstrong, as well --

Question: Say that again?

Cheney: I said Karl has hunted at the Armstrong, as well, and we're
both good friends of the Armstrongs and of Katharine Armstrong. And
Katharine suggested, and I agreed, that she would go make the
announcement, that is that she'd put the story out. And I thought
that made good sense for several reasons. First of all, she was an
eyewitness. She'd seen the whole thing. Secondly, she'd grown up on
the ranch, she'd hunted there all of her life. Third, she was the
immediate past head of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the
game control commission in the State of Texas, an acknowledged expert
in all of this.

And she wanted to go to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, which is the
local newspaper, covers that area, to reporters she knew. And I
thought that made good sense because you can get as accurate a story
as possible from somebody who knew and understood hunting. And then
it would immediately go up to the wires and be posted on the Web
site, which is the way it went out. And I thought that was the right
call.

Question: What do you think now?

Cheney: Well, I still do. I still think that the accuracy was
enormously important. I had no press person with me, I didn't have
any press people with me. I was there on a private weekend with
friends on a private ranch. In terms of who I would contact to have
somebody who would understand what we're even talking about, the
first person that we talked with at one point, when Katharine first
called the desk to get hold of a reporter, didn't know the difference
between a bullet and a shotgun -- a rifle bullet and a shotgun. And
there are a lot of basic important parts of the story that required
some degree of understanding. And so we were confident that Katharine
was the right one, especially because she was an eyewitness and she
could speak authoritatively on it. She probably knew better than I
did what had happened, since I'd only seen one piece of it.

Question: By the next morning, had you spoken again to Mr.
Whittington?

Cheney: The next morning I talked to his wife. And then I went to the
hospital in Corpus Christi and visited with him.

Question: When was that?

Cheney: Oh, it was shortly after noon on Sunday.

Question: Now, by that time had the word gone out to the newspaper?

Cheney: I believe it had. I can't remember what time Katharine
actually talked to the reporter. She had trouble that morning
actually finding a reporter. But they finally got connected with the
reporter, and that's when the story then went out.

Question: Now, it strikes me that you must have known that this was
going to be a national story --

Cheney: Oh, sure.

Question: -- and it does raise the question of whether you couldn't
have headed off this beltway firestorm if you had put out the word to
the national media, as well as to the local newspaper so that it
could post it on its Web site. I mean, in retrospect, wouldn't that
have been the wise course --

Cheney: Well, who is going to do that? Are they going to take my word
for what happened? There is obviously --

Question: Well, obviously, you could have put the statement out in
the name of whoever you wanted. You could put it out in the name of
Mrs. Armstrong, if you wanted to. Obviously, that's -- she's the one
who made the statement.

Cheney: Exactly. That's what we did. We went with Mrs. Armstrong. We
had -- she's the one who put out the statement. And she was the most
credible one to do it because she was a witness. It wasn't me in
terms of saying, here's what happened, it was --

Question: Right, understood. Now, the suspicion grows in some
quarters that you -- that this was an attempt to minimize it, by
having it first appear in a little paper and appear like a little
hunting incident down in a remote corner of Texas.

Cheney: There wasn't any way this was going to be minimized, Brit;
but it was important that it be accurate. I do think what I've
experienced over the years here in Washington is as the media outlets
have proliferated, speed has become sort of a driving force, lots of
time at the expense of accuracy. And I wanted to make sure we got it
as accurate as possible, and I think Katharine was an excellent
choice. I don't know who you could get better as the basic source for
the story than the witness who saw the whole thing.

Question: When did you first speak to -- if you spoke to Andy Card
at, what, midday, you said, on Sunday?

Cheney: Sometime Sunday morning.

Question: And what about -- when did you first -- when, if ever, have
you discussed it with the president?

Cheney: I talked to him about it yesterday, or Monday -- first on
Monday, and then on Tuesday, too.

Question: There is reporting to the effect that some in the White
House feel you kind of -- well, look at what Scott McClellan went
through the last couple days. There's some sense -- and perhaps not
unfairly so -- that you kind of hung him out to dry. How do you feel
about that?

Cheney: Well, Scott does a great job and it's a tough job. It's
especially a tough job under these conditions and circumstances. I
had a bit of the feeling that the press corps was upset because, to
some extent, it was about them -- they didn't like the idea that we
called the Corpus Christi Caller-Times instead of The New York Times.
But it strikes me that the Corpus Christi Caller-Times is just as
valid a news outlet as The New York Times is, especially for covering
a major story in South Texas.

Question: Well, perhaps so, but isn't there an institution here
present at the White House that has long-established itself as the
vehicle through which White House news gets out, and that's the pool?

Cheney: I had no press person with me, no coverage with me, no White
House reporters with me. I'm comfortable with the way we did it,
obviously. You can disagree with that, and some of the White House
press corps clearly do. But, no, I've got nothing but good things to
say about Scott McClellan and Dan Bartlett. They've got a tough job
to do and they do it well. They urged us to get the story out. The
decision about how it got out, basically, was my responsibility.

Question: That was your call.

Cheney: That was my call.

Question: All the way.

Cheney: All the way. It was recommended to me -- Katharine Armstrong
wanted to do it, as she said, and I concurred in that; I thought it
made good sense.

Question: Now, you're talking to me today -- this is, what, Wednesday?

Cheney: Wednesday.

Question: What about just coming out yourself Monday/Tuesday -- how
come?

Cheney: Well, part of it obviously has to do with the status of Harry
Whittington. And it's a difficult subject to talk about, frankly,
Brit. But most especially I've been very concerned about him and
focused on him and feel more comfortable coming out today because of
the fact that his circumstances have improved, he's gotten by what
was a potential crisis yesterday, with respect to the developments
concerning his heart. I think this decision we made, that this was
the right way to do it.

Question: Describe if you can your conversations with him, what
you've said to him and the attitude he's shown toward you in the
aftermath of this.

Cheney: He's been fantastic. He's a gentleman in every respect. He
oftentimes expressed more concern about me than about himself. He's
been in good spirits, unfailingly cheerful --

Question: What did he say about that? You said, "expressed concern"
about you -- what did he say?

Cheney: Well, when I first saw him in the hospital, for example, he
said, look, he said, I don't want this to create problems for you. He
literally was more concerned about me and the impact on me than he
was on the fact that he'd been shot. He's a -- I guess I'd describe
him as a true Texas gentleman, a very successful attorney, successful
businessman in Austin; a gentleman in every respect of the word. And
he's been superb.

Question: For you, personally, how would you -- you said this was one
of the worst days of your life. How so?

Cheney: What happened to my friend as a result of my actions, it's
part of this sudden, you know, in less than a second, less time than
it takes to tell, going from what is a very happy, pleasant day with
great friends in a beautiful part of the country, doing something I
love -- to, my gosh, I've shot my friend. I've never experienced
anything quite like that before.

Question: Will it affect your attitude toward this pastime you so
love in the future?

Cheney: I can't say that. You know, we canceled the Sunday hunt. I
said, look I'm not -- we were scheduled to go out again on Sunday and
I said I'm not going to go on Sunday, I want to focus on Harry. I'll
have to think about it.

Question: Some organizations have said they hoped you would find a
less violent pastime.

Cheney: Well, it's brought me great pleasure over the years. I love
the people that I've hunted with and do hunt with; love the outdoors,
it's part of my heritage, growing up in Wyoming. It's part of who I
am. But as I say, the season is ending, I'm going to let some time
pass over it and think about the future.

Question: On another subject, court filings have indicated that
Scooter Libby has suggested that his superiors -- unidentified --
authorized the release of some classified information. What do you
know about that?

Cheney: It's nothing I can talk about, Brit. This is an issue that's
been under investigation for a couple of years. I've cooperated
fully, including being interviewed, as well, by a special prosecutor.
All of it is now going to trial. Scooter is entitled to the
presumption of innocence. He's a great guy. I've worked with him for
a long time, have enormous regard for him. I may well be called as a
witness at some point in the case and it's, therefore, inappropriate
for me to comment on any facet of the case.

Question: Let me ask you another question. Is it your view that a
vice president has the authority to declassify information?

Cheney: There is an executive order to that effect.

Question: There is.

Cheney: Yes.

Question: Have you done it?

Cheney: Well, I've certainly advocated declassification and
participated in declassification decisions. The executive order --

Question: You ever done it unilaterally?

Cheney: I don't want to get into that. There is an executive order
that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously
focuses first and foremost on the president, but also includes the
vice president.

Question: There have been two leaks, one that pertained to possible
facilities in Europe; and another that pertained to this NSA matter.
There are officials who have had various characterizations of the
degree of damage done by those. How would you characterize the damage
done by those two reports?

Cheney: There clearly has been damage done.

Question: Which has been the more harmful, in your view?

Cheney: I don't want to get into just sort of ranking them, then you
get into why is one more damaging than the other. One of the problems
we have as a government is our inability to keep secrets. And it
costs us, in terms of our relationship with other governments, in
terms of the willingness of other intelligence services to work with
us, in terms of revealing sources and methods. And all of those
elements enter into some of these leaks.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/15/cheney.transcript/

=======================================


http://www.rawstory.com/news/2005/Beer_quote_pulled_from_MSNBC_Cheney_
0215.html

'Beer quote' pulled from MSNBC Cheney hunting party article

Ron Brynaert
February 15, 2006

Updated to include coverage in The Nation, and re-edited MSNBC story

An article at MSNBC's Website was edited to remove references to
alcohol, that may have been available at a picnic, which preceded the
accidental shooting of a 78-year-old lawyer by Vice President Cheney
last Saturday, RAW STORY has learned.

The change to the article was quickly noticed by a number of liberal
bloggers, and their readers, many of whom have been following this
much discussed story very closely for the last few days.

In the article, credited to Aram Roston and the NBC Investigative
Unit, Katherine Armstrong, a member of the family who own the ranch,
revealed new details about her lobbying for the Bush Administration,
and about circumstances surrounding the incident itself, which wasn't
reported to the media until the following morning. Armstrong was the
one who reported the news to a local news reporter, and she said that
Cheney agreed with the decision.

The following paragraph was removed for unexplained reasons from the
article sometime after it first was published on the Internet:

Armstrong also told NBC News that she does not believe alcohol was
involved in the accident. She says she believes no one that day was
drinking, although she says there may have been beer available during
a picnic lunch that preceded the incident. "There may be a beer or
two in there," she said, "but remember not everyone in the party was
shooting."

Jane Hamsher at the popular firedoglake blog included the "beer
quote" in a post she wrote while it was still on the Web live, then
later noted in an update that the article appeared to have
been "scrubbed" (or removed) from the MSNBC Website. Hamsher also
linked to an earlier post she wrote in which a similiar "scrubbing"
occurred, but that time at the CBS News Website.

Other blogs and Websites that spotted the change include Democratic
Underground, Thought Crimes, and Daily Kos.

JohnnyCougar, who left the comment at Democratic Underground, appears
to have been the first blogger to catch the switch, and he also
covered it at his blog, Someone Took In These Pants....

Since Armstrong was interviewed by telephone there may be lingering
questions as to why MSNBC "scrubbed" the story.

Screenshot of the article as it originally appeared on Tuesday: link.

Screenshot of the Google News listing including the "beer quote":
link.

The article as it appears now: link.

(Special thanks to all the RAW STORY readers who sent us links by
email. Keep the tips coming!)

Excerpts from an article written by John Nichols at The Nation:

Vice President Dick Cheney, who was forced to leave Yale University
because his penchant for late-night beer drinking exceeded his
devotion to his studies, and who is one of the small number of
Americans who can count two drunk driving busts on his driving
record, may have been doing more than hunting quail on the day that
he shot a Texas lawyer in the face.

The MSNBC story, which appeared only briefly before the website was
scrubbed for reasons not yet explained, has been kept alive by the
able web investigators at www.rawstory.com and other progressive
blogs. And so it should be, as the prospect that alcohol may have
been involved in the Texas incident takes the story in a whole new
direction.

As with her over-the-top efforts to blame Whittington, the victim,
for getting in the way of Cheney's birdshot blast, Armstrong's line
on liquor smells a little more like an attempt to cover for the vice
president than full disclosure.

On Wednesday, MSNBC updated their article, but provided no
explanation for the "scrubbing" the day before, even though they now
emphasize that the interview was a "recorded, on-the-record phone
call."

Excerpts from the updated version:

In a recorded, on-the-record phone call with NBC News, Armstrong said
that beer may have been available at lunch that day. "If someone
wants to help themselves to a beer," she said, "they may, but I did
not see anyone do that," Armstrong says. She says she was not sure if
there were beers in the coolers but wasn't ready to rule it
out: "There may be a beer or two in there, but remember not everyone
in the party was shooting," she told NBC News.

Armstrong added that she did not believe that Cheney or anyone else
shooting in the hunting party had alcohol on Saturday before the
hunting accident.

NBC News called the vice president's office for comment four times
Tuesday and Wednesday and asked whether the vice president or anyone
in the hunting party had consumed any alcohol on Saturday prior to
the accident. In an e-mail statement Wednesday to NBC News, the vice
president's press secretary referred NBC News to the Kenedy County
Sheriff's Department report on the incident. Later in the day on Fox
News, Brit Hume stated that Cheney told him during a taped interview
that he had had "a beer at lunch" before the hunting incident.

Hamsher's reaction at firedoglake to the update: "Big whopping kudos
to readers who spotted the MSNBC scrub of Katharine
Armstrong's "beer" comments yesterday, and also to everyone who
contacted MSNBC about it. I have no doubt that the only reason Dick
admitted to drinking a beer before shooting an old man in the face
came because of that particular dust-up; he's not one particularly
given to candor."

Hamsher also linked to blogger digby, who linked to a CNN article
which also referred to the Vice President's consumption of alcohol
last Saturday: "Armstrong had previously told CNN that she never saw
Cheney or Whittington "drink at all on the day of the shooting until
after the accident occurred, when the vice president fixed himself a
cocktail back at the house.""

Developing...

============================================


http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/15/cheney/index.html

Cheney: 'One of the worst days of my life'
Vice president defends handling of hunting accident

Thursday, February 16, 2006; Posted: 12:06 a.m. EST (05:06 GMT)

Vice President Dick Cheney walks back to the White House after his
television interview Wednesday.
Image:

WATCH Browse/Search

After four days, Cheney speaks of the incident (2:17)

Dick Cheney: The hush-hush VP (2:33)

Cheney's shot heard in New York legislature (1:26)


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Vice President Dick Cheney took responsibility
Wednesday for shooting a friend during a weekend hunting trip but
dismissed criticism he waited too long to disclose the incident
publicly.

"I am the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend," Cheney told
Fox News in an interview broadcast Wednesday evening. "That is
something I will never forget."

Cheney's host at the south Texas ranch where the accident took place
Saturday evening had earlier said that the victim, 78-year-old Harry
Whittington, had been shot after rejoining the quail-hunting party
without announcing himself. (Watch why secrecy has been Cheney's
modus operandi -- 1:43)

But Cheney said Wednesday, "Ultimately, I am the guy who pulled the
trigger and fired the round that hit Harry.

"You can talk about all the other conditions that existed at the
time, but that's the bottom line," he said. "It's not Harry's fault.
You can't blame anybody else." (Full transcript)

The vice president said that after the shooting he ran to
Whittington, who was bleeding, and that Cheney's own medical team --
which always travels with him -- administered first aid.

"I said, 'Harry, I had no idea you were there,'" Cheney
recounted. "He didn't respond."

The interview marked the vice president's first public remarks on the
Saturday evening shooting that left Whittington in intensive care at
a hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Hospital officials said Whittington, an Austin lawyer long active in
Texas Republican politics, was in stable condition Wednesday after a
piece of birdshot lodged in or against his heart muscle triggered a
mild heart attack a day earlier.

"The image of him falling is something I will never be able to get
out of my mind," Cheney said. "I fired, and there's Harry falling.
And it was, I'd have to say, one of the worst days of my life, at
that moment."

The White House has spent the past three days fending off questions
about the accident and its belated disclosure. News of Whittington's
shooting did not emerge until Sunday, after Cheney's host, Katharine
Armstrong, told a Corpus Christi newspaper about the incident.

Senior aides to President Bush, who was notified of the accident
Saturday night, expressed unusual and increasing frustration about
the way the matter was handled. (Timeline)

But Cheney defended his decisions, saying he needed to wait for
accurate information about Whittington's condition. And he said
it "made good sense" for Armstrong to deliver the news rather than to
release it through his office.

She was an eyewitness, had hunted on the ranch all her life and was
the immediate past head of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department --
"an acknowledged expert in all of this," he said.

He denied that notifying a South Texas newspaper was an attempt to
bury the report, saying, "There wasn't any way this was going to be
minimized."

No reporters were accompanying the vice president on the trip, and he
said none of his press aides were around at the time.

Since the story broke, Bush aides became more open in private
conversations about trying to find a way to persuade the vice
president to speak out.

Cheney said the accident was "a difficult subject to talk about,
frankly." But he said Whittington has been "a gentleman in every
respect."

"He literally was more concerned about me and the impact on me than
he was on the fact that he'd been shot," said Cheney, who visited
Whittington in the hospital Sunday before returning to Washington.

Handling criticized
Democrats have pilloried the White House's handling of the situation,
calling it symbolic of an administration obsessed with secrecy.

"The refusal of this administration to level with the American people
on matters large and small is very disturbing," said Sen. Hillary
Clinton, a New York Democrat.

And Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said: "The
vice president has not held a press conference since 2002."

Even a Republican congressman, Connecticut Rep. Christopher Shays,
told CNN he believes Cheney "does need to have a full press
conference."

"It's like they don't learn," Shays said of the Bush administration.

"It had to have been terrible for him, and obviously the individual
he shot and everybody who was there. But the information needs to be
made public and made public quickly," Shays said.

The handling of the situation also raised questions about whether
Cheney had been drinking at the time of the shooting, about 5:50 p.m.
Cheney told Fox he had had a beer at lunch, but the hunt did not
begin until "sometime after 3 p.m."

"The five of us who were in that party were together all afternoon.
Nobody was drinking, nobody was under the influence," he said.

The Kenedy County Sheriff's Department, which interviewed Cheney
about the accident Sunday morning, concluded there was "no alcohol or
misconduct involved in the incident." A state game warden gave Cheney
a warning for hunting without a required stamp on his license, for
which the vice president's office later submitted payment.

Armstrong, a longtime friend of the Cheney family, told CNN before
the vice president's interview that she never saw Cheney or
Whittington "drink at all on the day of the shooting until after the
accident occurred, when the vice president fixed himself a cocktail
back at the house."

Cheney was not asked Wednesday about the fact that he was not
interviewed by police until the morning after the shooting.

Whittington 'walking around'
Armstrong told CNN she had talked to Whittington on Wednesday and he
is "up and walking around."

Peter Banko, a spokesman for Christus Spohn Memorial Hospital, told
reporters Whittington is doing well after the heart attack.

He is "sitting up in a chair, eating regular food and actually plans
on doing some of his attorney work in his room today," Banko said.

He said Whittington will probably stay in the hospital another six
days, and explained that he is still in the facility's intensive care
unit for "personal privacy reasons."

Dr. David Blanchard, the hospital's emergency room chief, said he
believes the pellet near Whittington's heart will stay where it is.

Banko said he had spoken with Whittington about the uproar
surrounding the shooting, and his reaction was that it was "much ado
about nothing."

CNN's Dana Bash, Suzanne Malveaux and Tim McCaughan contributed to
this report.

==================================


http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/02/15/cheney.legal.ap/index.html

If lawyer dies, Cheney might face negligence charge

Wednesday, February 15, 2006; Posted: 3:16 p.m. EST (20:16 GMT)

Vice president Dick Cheney could face a criminal negligence charge if
his hunting buddy dies.
Image:


DALLAS, Texas (AP) -- If the man wounded by Dick Cheney dies, the
vice president could -- in theory at least -- face criminal charges,
even though the shooting was an accident.

A Texas grand jury could bring a charge of criminally negligent
homicide if there is evidence the vice president knew or should have
known "there was a substantial or unjustifiable risk that his actions
would result in him shooting a fellow hunter," said Dallas defense
attorney David Finn.

Finn has worked as both a state and a federal prosecutor.

"The risk must be of such a nature and degree that it got to be
pretty outrageous -- that a reasonable person would have to say, `I
am not pulling the trigger because this other guy might be in front
of me,' " Finn said.

The charge carries up to two years behind bars, but with no previous
felonies Cheney would be eligible for probation, the former
prosecutor said.

Mark Skurka, first assistant district attorney of the three-county
area where the shooting took place, said prosecutors did not have an
investigation under way.

"If something unfortunate happens, then we'll decide what to do, then
we'll decide whether we're going to have an investigation or not,"
Skurka said.

Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old lawyer, was struck in the face, neck
and chest with shotgun pellets over the weekend while Cheney was
shooting at quail. Whittington suffered a mild heart attack Tuesday
after a pellet traveled to his heart.

But on Wednesday, hospital officials said he had a normal heart
rhythm again and was sitting up in a chair, eating regular food and
planned to do some legal work in his hospital room. Doctors said they
are highly optimistic he will recover.

In the only other case of someone being shot by a vice president,
Aaron Burr was indicted on murder charges in New York and New Jersey
for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804, but he was never
tried and finished out his term in office.

========================================


A Most Dangerous Game

by Cathy O'Brien, "TRANCE Formation of America"
http://www.trance-formation.com

During Christmas vacation of 1974, my father flew us all to Disney
World by route of Tampa, Florida. Ignorant of geography, it did not
occur to me that Tampa was out of the way to Disney World until my
father drove the rented van to the gates of MacDill Air Force Base.
Military personnel met me there and escorted me into the base TOP
SECRET high tech mind control conditioning facility for "behavioral
modification" programming. This was the first in what became a
routine series of mind control testing and/or programming sessions on
government installations that I would endure throughout my Project
Monarch victimization.

Whether I was in a military, NASA, or government building, the
procedure for maintaining me under total mind control remained
consistent with Project Monarch requirements. This included prior
physical and/or psychological trauma; sleep, food, and water
deprivation; high voltage electric shock; and hypnotic and/or
harmonic programming of specific memory compartments/ personalities.
The high tech equipment and methodisms I endured from that time on
gave the U.S. government absolute control of my mind and life. I had
been literally driven out of my conscious mind and existed only
through my programmed subconscious. I lost my free will, ability to
reason, and could not think to question anything that was happening
to me. I could only do as I was told.

In the summer of 1975 (when I was 17 years old), my family drove all
the way from Michigan to the Teton Mountains of Wyoming. I was
ordered to ride in the back storage area of the family Chevy Suburban
since I was forbidden to associate or communicate with my brothers
and sister. So I dissociated into books, or into the metaphorical,
hypnotic suggestions from my father and tranced deeper as I watched
the prairie's seemingly endless sea of "amber waves of grain" streak
past my window. Once when we stopped at a gas station, my father took
me inside to show me a stuffed "jackalope" mounted on the wall. Due
to my tranced, dissociative state and high suggestibility level, I
believed it was indeed a cross between a jack rabbit and antelope. It
was 100+ degrees in the Badlands when it cooled down at night. The
intense heat of the day accentuated my ever increasing thirst. My
father was physically preparing me though water deprivation for the
intense tortures and programming I would endure in Wyoming.

Dick Cheney, then White House Chief of Staff to President
(Gerald "Magic Bullet") Ford (Ford was a pedophile pornographer in
the Michigan Mafia, who first recruited me into CIA's MKULTRA Project
Monarch program - "Ford" was born Leslie Lynch King Jr according to
WhiteHouse.gov), later Secretary of Defense to President George Bush,
documented member of the Council on Foreign relations (CFR), and
Presidential hopeful for 1996, was originally Wyoming's only
Congressman. Dick Cheney was the reason my family had traveled to
Wyoming where I endured yet another form of brutality -- his version
of "A Most Dangerous Game," or human hunting.

It is my understanding now that A Most Dangerous Game was devised to
condition military personnel in survival and combat maneuvers. Yet it
was used on me and other slaves known to me as a means of further
conditioning the mind to the realization there was "no place to
hide," as well as traumatize the victim for ensuing programming. It
was my experience over the years that A Most Dangerous Game had
numerous variations on the primary theme of being stripped naked and
turned loose in the wilderness while being hunted by men and dogs. In
reality, all "wilderness" areas were enclosed in secure military
fencing whereby it was only a matter of time until I was caught,
repeatedly raped, and tortured.

Dick Cheney had an apparent addiction to the "thrill of the sport."
He appeared obsessed with playing A Most Dangerous Game as a means of
traumatizing mind control victims, as well as to satisfy his own
perverse sexual kinks. My introduction to the game occurred upon
arrival at the hunting lodge near Greybull, Wyoming, and it
physically and psychologically devastated me. I was sufficiently
traumatized for Cheney's programming, as I stood naked in his hunting
lodge office after being hunted down and caught. Cheney was talking
as he paced around me, "I could stuff you and mount you like a
jackalope and call you a two legged dear. Or I could stuff you with
this (he unzipped his pants to reveal his oversized penis) right down
your throat, and then mount you. Which do you prefer?"

Blood and sweat became mixed with the dirt on my body and slid like
mud down my legs and shoulder. I throbbed with exhaustion and pain as
I stood unable to think to answer such a question. "Make up your
mind," Cheney coaxed. Unable to speak, I remained silent. "You don't
get a choice, anyway. I make up your mind for you. That's why you're
here. For me to make you a mind, and make you mine/mind. You lost
your mind a long time ago. Now I'm going to give you one. Just like
the Wizard (of Oz) gave Scarecrow a brain, the Yellow Brick Road led
you here to me. You've 'come such a long, long way' for your brain,
and I will give you one."

The blood reached my shoes and caught my attention. Had I been
further along in my programming, I perhaps would never have noticed
such a thing or had the capability to think to wipe it away. But so
far, I had only been to MacDill and Disney World for
government/military programming. At last, when I could speak, I
begged, "If you don't mind, can I please use your bathroom?"

Cheney's face turned red with rage. He was on me in an instant,
slamming my back into the wall with one arm across my chest and his
hand on my throat, choking me while applying pressure to the carotid
artery in my neck with his thumb. His eyes bulged and he spit as he
growled, "If you don't mind me, I will kill you. I could kill you --
Kill you -- with my bare hands. You're not the first and you won't be
the last. I'll kill you any time I goddamn well please." He flung me
on the cot-type bed that as behind me. There he finished taking his
rage out on me sexually.

On the long trip back to Michigan, I lay in a heap behind the seats
of the Suburban, nauseated and hurting from Cheney's brutality and
high voltage tortures, plus the whole Wyoming experience. My father
stopped by the waterfalls flowing through the Tetons to "wash my
brain" of the memory of Cheney. I could barely walk through the woods
to the falls for the process as instructed, despite having learned my
lessons well from Cheney on following orders.

The next year when our "annual" trip to Disney World rolled around,
my father drove, pulling his new Holiday Rambler Royale International
trailer. My father dropped me off en route at the Kennedy Space
Center in Titusville, Florida where I was subjected to my first NASA
programming. From then on, I was "obsessed" with following
the "Yellow Brick Road" to Nashville, Tennessee. Moving to Nashville
was all I could talk about. If anyone asked me the question I could
not think to ask myself "Why?", I would respond by reiterating it was
something "I had to do."

(continued)

The Most Dangerous Game: Revisited

George Bush was highly active in the Lampe, Missouri and Mount
Shasta, California retreat compounds. Just like Lampe, Shasta's cover
was country music. According to everyone I knew, singer and
songwriter Merle Haggard supposedly ran the show at Lake Shasta,
diverting any and all attention from the nearby Mount Shasta
compound. Shasta was the largest covert mind control slave camp of
which I am aware. Hidden in the wooded hills, military fencing
corrals an enormous fleet of unmarked black helicopters and more mind
controlled military robots than I saw in all of Haiti. This covert
military operation served its own agenda, not America's. I was told
and overheard that it was a base for the future Multi Jurisdictional
Police Force for enforcing order and law in the New World Order. In
the center of the high security compound, was another well-guarded
military-fenced area that was regarded as a "Camp David" of sorts for
those running our country. George Bush and Dick Cheney shared an
office there, and claimed the outer perimeter woods as their own
hunting ground where they played "A Most Dangerous Game." Predicated
on conversations I overheard between the two, it was this world
police military background that earned Dick Cheney his cabinet
appointment as Secretary of Defense with the Bush Administration.

Houston stayed at Haggard's Lake Shasta resort while Kelly and I were
helicoptered to Mount Shasta for our scheduled meeting with Bush and
Cheney. The helicopter pilot directed our attention to the military
fencing surrounding the outer perimeter of the compound. Rarely did
pilots ever speak to either of us, but this one smiled wickedly as he
told us we would need to know the outer limits for A Most Dangerous
Game.

As soon as we arrived at Bush and Cheney's inner sanctum, noticed
George Bush, Jr. was with them. It was my experience that Jr. stood
by his father and covered his backside whenever Bush would become
incapacitated from drugs or required criminal back up. It appeared
that Jr. was there to serve both purposes, while his father and
Cheney enjoyed their work-vacation.

Hyper from drugs, Cheney and Bush were eager to hunt their human prey
in "A Most Dangerous Game." They greeted me with the rules of the
game, ordered me to strip naked despite the cold December winds, and
told me in Oz cryptic to "beware of the lions and tigers and bears."
(6-year-old) Kelly's life became the stakes, as usual, which
resurrected my natural and exaggerated programmed maternal instincts.
Tears silently ran down my cheeks as Bush told me, "If we catch you,
Kelly's mine (for pedophilia). So run, run as fast as you can. I'll
get you and your little girl, too, because I can, I can, I can. And I
will." Cheney, daring me to respond, asked, "Any questions?"

I said, "There's no place to run because there's a fence -- the kind
I can't get over. I saw it."

Rather than physically assault me, Cheney laughed at my sense of "no
where to run, no where to hide" and explained that a bear had torn a
hole in the fence somewhere, and all I had to do is find it. He
lowered his rifle to my head and said, "Let the games begin. Go."

Wearing only my tennis shoes, I ran through the trees as fast and as
far as I could, which wasn't very far at all. Bush was using his bird
dog to track me, the same one that had recently been used with me in
bestiality filming as a "Byrd-dog" joke on my owner, Senator Robert
C. Byrd. When caught, Cheney held his gun to my head again as he
stood over me, looking warm in his sheep skin coat. Bush ordered me
to take his dog sexually while they watched, then he and Cheney
ushered me back to their cabin.

I pulled on my clothes and sat in the office part of the cabin
awaiting instructions. I had no idea where Kelly was, nor do I in
retrospect. Bush and Cheney were still in their hunting clothes when
the programming session began. Bush said, "You and I are about to
embark on a most dangerous game of diplomatic relations. This is my
game. You will follow my rules. I will have the distinct advantage of
hunting you with my Eye in the Sky (satellite). I'll watch every move
you make. As long as you play the game by my rules and make no
mistakes, you live. One mistake and I'll get you, my pretty, and your
little girl, too. You die, and Kelly will have to play with me. I
prefer it that way. Then it will be her most dangerous game. The
cards are stacked in my favor because, well, it is my game! Are you
game?"

There was no choice. I responded as conditioned, "Yes, Sir! I'm
game." The parallels to the Most Dangerous game that had just
occurred in the woods were deliberate and intended to make retrieval
of memory "impossible" due to crypto-amnesia scrambling.

"Good. Then let the games begin. Listen carefully to your
instructions. You have no room for error." Cheney flipped his "game
timer" -- an hourglass. Bush continued, "This game is called the King
and Eye, and here's the deal. You will be establishing stronger
diplomatic relations according to order between Mexico, the U.S., and
the Middle East (for drug running and slave trading). Your role will
require a change of face at each new place. I'll chart your course,
define your role, and pull your strings. You'll speak my words when I
pull your strings. There is no room for error."

Cheney was half lying across the plain military issue style desk in
an apparent drug stupor as Bush talked. Still wearing his hunting
coat and hat, Cheney aimed his rifle at me from the desk and
threatened, "Or a-hunting we will go." Bush finished Cheney's threat
by singing, "We'll catch a fox and put her in a box and lower her in
a hole."

Bush looked at Cheney and burst out laughing. The sight of him
dressed in his hunting clothes with a huge bore double-barreled
shotgun to his shoulder inspired Bush to tell him he "looked like
Elmer Fudd." Cheney, imitating the cartoon character, said, "Where is
that waskily wabbit?"

Operation The King and Eye would involve Reagan's #1 envoy Philip
Habib (who cryptically played the Alice in Wonderland role of the
White Rabbit with slaves such as myself) and Saudi Arabian King Fahd.
So when Bush referred to the two as "Elmer Fahd and the Waskily
Wabbit," he and Cheney laughed until they cried. Since both were
already high from drugs anyway, they had a great deal of difficulty
maintaining composure long enough to complete my programming.

read more excerpts:
http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%
20History/most_dangerous_game.htm

VIDEO: British Marines Filmed Making Recruits Fight Naked (2005)
http://www.ogrish.com/archives/british_marines_filmed_making_recruits_
fight_naked_Nov_28_2005.html

FOX VIDEO: Vegas 'Game' Has Men Hunting Nude Women
"A new Las Vegas game gets thrill-seekers out of the casinos and into
the great wide open — to shoot naked women with paintball guns.
In 'Hunting for Bambi,' men pay $10,000 each for the challenge of
tracking the women, who are nude except for sneakers, and trying to
blast them with colored paint. According to the site, the hunters
also have the option of mounting their prey when they're done — and
having sex with the women. Women's groups and legal experts are, not
surprisingly, up in arms over the cruel game. 'I couldn't quite
believe it. The site advertised this as really hurting people,' said
legal expert Susan Estrich on Fox News. 'They're violating about 20
criminal laws, including assault.' The National Organization for
Women has also spoken out against the game. 'It's appalling, and it's
really frightening,' Rita Haley, president of NOW's New York City
chapter, told the New York Post. 'It says something about the men who
want to play this game and something about the financial climate that
drives women to participate. The big fear is that somebody who plays
will eventually want to use real bullets.'"
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,92070,00.html

VIDEO: Hunting for Bambi
Men Hunting Naked Women. It's About F**k'n Time!
http://www.huntingforbambi.com

Tennessee Code §44-8-410
Every owner of a bitch is required to confine the same for twenty-
four (24) days during the time the bitch is proud.

Tennessee Code §44-8-411
Any person crippling, killing, or in any way destroying a proud bitch
that is running at large shall not be held liable for the damages due
to such killing or destruction.

"'They're hurting us. Get me out!' The Government was playing with
her brain."
-Dr. Simon Tam, censored Serenity pilot, Fox TV
http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=18&t=17741&m=250459

=========================================

"I'm glad my wife turned down Cheney's bribe, er, job offer to work
directly for him as SecDef at the Pentagon in 1992."
-John Lee, producer of Pirate News TV
http://geocities.com/pentagon_whistleblower

Pirate News TV
http://piratenews.org

fair use per 17 USC 107