Newsweek Cover: Shot Heard Round the World (Cheney Shooting)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11436302/site/newsweek/

Feb. 27, 2006 issue - Dick Cheney has never been your normal politician. He has never seemed as eager to please, as needy for votes and approval and headlines as, say, Bill Clinton. Cheney can seem taciturn, self-contained, a little gloomy; in recent years, his manner has been not just unwelcoming but stand-offish. This is not to say, however, that he is entirely modest and self-effacing, or that he does not crave power as much as or more than any office-seeker. This, after all, is a man who, in conducting a search for George W. Bush's vice president, picked himself. Indeed, since 9/11, Cheney has struck a pose more familiar to readers of Greek tragedies than the daily Hotline. At times, he appears to be the lonely leader, brooding in his tent, knowing that doom may be inevitable, but that the battle must be fought, and that glory can be eternal.

If, as he ponders the Threat Matrix at his daily intelligence briefing, Cheney really sees himself as a modern Achilles or Hector on the plains at Troy, he is not just being grandiose. A few weeks after 9/11, NEWSWEEK has learned, Cheney worried that he and his family and his staff might have been exposed in an anthrax attack. According to knowledgeable former officials, a mysterious letter turned up at the vice president's mansion. (A former senior law-enforcement official recalled that sensors went off.) The alarm turned out to be false. Still, to be safe, Cheney and his entourage began taking Cipro, the powerful antibiotic. The story was hushed up. (Cheney's office referred NEWSWEEK to the Secret Service, which declined to comment.) Cheney prefers to be a quiet warrior, severe perhaps, but not bleak—just resolute.

<snip>

It was late afternoon, and the hunters were ready to call it a day. Harry Whittington, a prominent Austin lawyer and big-time GOP donor, had bagged two birds with two shots. "Great shot, Harry, you got a double!" called out Katharine. While Whittington went off with his dog and his guides to find the dead birds, Cheney and Pam Willeford, the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein and another major GOP donor, went ahead to look for another covey of birds. Cheney spotted a bird flying behind him, swung around with his Italian-made 28-gauge shotgun toward the setting sun and pulled the trigger. Whittington, wearing a regulation orange vest, was approaching out of a slight gully, some 30 yards away.

Armstrong, watching from an off-road vehicle about a hundred yards away, saw Whittington fall. A team of Secret Service agents bolted out of the car and ran past her, one of them shouting an expletive. Gun in hand, Cheney rushed over to the fallen Whittington. Later, the vice president rode back with Armstrong. "You'd have to be an idiot not to see what the poor man was going through," recalled Armstrong. "It was very quiet. I remember leaning forward and squeezing him on the shoulder." At one point Cheney said, "I never saw him."


Cheney rides a horse in Wyoming in August 2004

[tularetom]

1. Cheney is NOT an experienced hunter

He may be a talented slaughterer of farm raised tame birds but in this incident I believe he suffered a case of what we used to call "buck fever" where a novice hunter gets excited and begins firing at anything that moves in the hope of shooting a deer. (The hunting equivalent of premature ejaculation). This has reduced him from Darth Vader to Elmer Fudd and impaired his usefulness to the * administration. He's now just a soft flabby silly old fart.

But at least he knows how to ride a horse.

[izzie]

2. That they used Gosford Park as a allegory is fitting

Ever seen the pictures of King Edward or the Czar on their so called sporting trips? Rich lazy people who have nothing to do and call getting out of a car and walking 30 yards to kill birds or deer that are caged for the kill is for the rich and powerful and not for a man of the people. It may make them fell good I guess. It looks like this is an aim of these so called self-made men who got their millions on ours backs and want to feel they are better than we are. God gives them riches because they are good, Right? And if your born rich and do not even have to try to do better you are just born better. God knows what he is doing. We were hoping this country would do better and it has in some ways but I think if Bush and Co. have their way we will have the born to rule second string guys just taking this country down----even more.

[Nothing Without Hope]

3. This much of the excerpt sounds like positive spin for Cheney.

Resolute leader and all that. Which is exactly what he WASN'T in any sense at all:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x464667
thread title (2-19-06 GD): Jane Hamsher Explains the WIDER IMPORTANCE of the Cheney Shooting Story
Comment/excerpt: Very insightful analysis by Jane Hamsher of firedoglake. As Jane sees it, Fuddgate has weakened Cheney, and this has in turn lessened his clout in strong-arming Congressional members into toeing his line., at least for now. One major issue impacted by this, Jane believes, is the status of NSA investigation.

[deminks]

4. Yikes. One little item buried in this article

stood out to me.

snip:

Others close to Cheney had suggested that he was profoundly affected by 9/11. It is hard for anyone who was not in Cheney's shoes that day, and in the weeks and months that followed, to appreciate the stress and uncertainty of that time. Around 9:35 on the morning of 9/11, Cheney was lifted off his feet by the Secret Service and hustled into the White House bunker. Cheney testified to the 9/11 Commission that he spoke with President Bush before giving an order to shoot down a hijacked civilian airliner that appeared headed toward Washington. (The plane was United Flight 93, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field after a brave revolt by the passengers.) But a source close to the commission, who declined to be identified revealing sensitive information, says that none of the staffers who worked on this aspect of the investigation believed Cheney's version of events.

A draft of the report conveyed their skepticism. But when top White House officials, including chief of staff Andy Card and the then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, reviewed the draft, they became extremely agitated. After a prolonged battle, the report was toned down. The factual narrative, closely read, offers no evidence that Cheney sought initial authorization from the president. The point is not a small one. Legally, Cheney was required to get permission from his commander in chief, who was traveling (but reachable) at the time. If the public ever found out that Cheney gave the order on his own, it would have strongly fed the view that he was the real power behind the throne.

Yikes, he gave an order to shoot down planes without consulting the Pretzeldente who was alive somewhere flying around the country dodging terrorists. And he lied to Congress. I just had not seen this in print before. Sorry if this is a well know fact. Or, has the public just found out????

[RamboLiberal]

5. That Cheney gave the shootdown order is widely known on DU

Though with all the posts that go on here - I can understand missing that.

[Rose Siding]

6. Ol' 5 Deferment - Magically transformed into a Warrior

complete with tent, battlefield and his likeness to Gen Marshall. And OF COURSE the gratuitous, He's Not Like Clinton OR Gore, like that's a GOOD thing! Must really have been scrabling to fill up column inches.

What drek!


Stoicism can be a great attribute in a leader. "I have no feelings," the statesman Gen. George C. Marshall once said, "except for those I reserve for Mrs. Marshall.".....

In human terms, it is perfectly understandable why Cheney was in no mood to talk to reporters then or for several days thereafter......

Cheney is often lauded as that rare No. 2 who, having no political ambition for himself, can give his all to the president......

White House aides were becoming increasingly restive, anxiously joking that if Cheney were more of an ambitious veep, like Al Gore, he would be crying on "Oprah.".....


And he HATES us! The press is there to inform us, but check out his contempt:


....After about 30 seconds, Cheney asked his handlers to "kick the press out." Eying the departing reporters, he offered his slightly lopsided grin and announced, "It always makes my day."

[SaveAmerica]

7. Look at the Rating at the bottom, all that good info and people are

only giving it a '2'?

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