Newsweek: ‘He Lost Control of His Emotions’ (Hunters on Cheney)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11434876/site/newsweek/

<snip>

Cheney's political enemies dismissed his apology on Fox News as too little, too late. But hunters were relieved to hear the vice president plainly say that the accident was his fault. In the aftermath of the shooting, Katharine Armstrong, the ranch owner's daughter, had claimed Whittington, not Cheney, was to blame.

That's not how hunters saw it. It's true they often call out their location to the others to avoid accidents, and some said Whittington should have announced his presence as he approached Cheney. Even so, the attempts to blame the victim rubbed plenty of hunters the wrong way. "I voted for the guy—I love him," says Lance Lyons, manager of Green Valley Hunter's Paradise, a preserve in Millboro, Va. "But the guy made a mistake. He's the trigger man."

If Cheney's mea culpa put the question of blame to rest, something else he said in the same interview raised a different kind of ire among experienced hunters. He admitted that he'd had a beer at lunch on the day of the hunt—a huge taboo in the sport. No one has alleged Cheney was impaired by alcohol; the hunt took place hours after the lunch, and the accident report says no alcohol was involved. But most hunters follow an iron rule of no drinking at all on the day of a hunt. "Here, if you have a beer at lunch the hunt is over," says preserve manager Lyons, who enforces a "daylight to dinnertime" alcohol ban on his property. "We drink all we want after the hunt." (Some hunters also complained that Cheney got off with a warning for hunting without a required $7 quail stamp. An ordinary Joe, they said, would have been hit with a stiff fine at least, especially if he had shot someone.)

For all their complaints about Cheney, though, sportsmen still had a little birdshot left over for the backsides of nonhunting journalists, some of whom chastised Cheney while getting the basic guns-and-ammo facts of the story wrong. "What really infuriates people is they come out and say that someone was shot with buckshot as opposed to birdshot," says Todd Smith, editor in chief of Outdoor Life magazine. And hunters were driven crazy by the notion—which took hold among some bloggers—that the birdshot couldn't possibly have wounded Whittington from 30 yards. Of course, none of those doubters volunteered to put that theory to a field test.

[nuxvomica]

1. The notion of a "field test" made me think of Miles O'Brien

And his Taser demo that is frequently played on Countdown. Yikes!

[PDittie]

2. Wasn't that Rick Sanchez and not MO'B? eom

[Eric J in MN]

3. "No one has alleged Cheney was impaired by alcohol"

No one has come forward with definitive proof.

However, that is the most obvious explanation for why Cheney's Secret Service kept the police from talking to Cheney until the next day.

The author of that article places too much weight on what Cheney told Fox News' Brit Hume days later. Cheney is a dishonest man, as we saw with his hyping a bogus connection between Saddam and the 9/11 attacks.

[depakid]

4. The classic admission

As any defense attorney or prosecuter who's ever done drunk driving cases will tell you- that's what defendants always say.

The one or two beer admission.

[bemildred]

5. Drinking while hunting is taboo?

Where, in Saudi Arabia?
:rofl::rofl:

[alarimer]

6. the upland bird stamp is a new one in Texas

It started Sept. 1. Usually for the first year, game wardens only give out warnings if you don't have the new stamp. So giving Cheney a warning was NOT unusual, nor was it indicative of special treatment. The game wardens I know do their jobs well.

[Beetwasher]

7. "Cheney's political enemies dismissed his apology" What Fucking Apology?

He didn't apologize. This is the rightwing media in action, even when it seems they're criticising him, the ingrained, fundamental spin covers the admin.