Slow Leak: How Cheney Stalled News Reports of Hunting Accident
Word of the mishap took 20 hours to get out as the Vice President insisted on telling a local newspaper before everyone else, sources say The Vice President was the press strategist, and Karl Rove was the investigative reporter. Vice President Cheney overruled the advice of several members of the White House staff and insisted on sticking to a plan for releasing information about his hunting accident that resulted in a 20-hour, overnight delay in public confirmation of the startling incident, according to several Republican sources.
"This is either a cover-up story or an incompetence story," said a top Republican who is close to the White House and has rarely been critical of the Administration in the past five years. "Karl was constrained, as was the entire communications operation, because the Vice President had arranged for how this was to come out."
As described by the White House spokesman at a pair of rowdy briefings and in a follow-up e-mail to reporters, Cheney accidentally shot a 78-year-old hunting companion on a ranch near Corpus Christi on Saturday at about 5:30 p.m. local time, or 6:30 p.m. in Washington. A traveling aide to the Vice President gave what one official privately called a "heads up" to the staff at the White House Situation Room, who notified White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. He called President Bush around 7:30 p.m. "to inform him that there was a hunting accident" in the Vice President's group, a spokesman said, but Card "did not know the Vice President was involved at that time," according to an e-mail to White House reporters. Rove, a deputy chief of staff, later spoke to the ranch owner, who is a longtime friend, and discovered that the Vice President had acccidentally shot someone. Rove called Bush shortly before 8 p.m. to tell him, according to the e-mail. Press Secretary Scott McClellan was not told until 6 the next morning. At that time, he began "pushing to get the information out," according to an official who learned about the conversations from someone besides McClellan.
But that did not happen right away. Cheney insisted on carrying out a strategy he had worked out with the ranch owner, Katharine Armstrong, in which she was to call a trusted reporter at the local paper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, to disclose the news. Caller-Times Managing Editor Shane Fitzgerald told TIME that the newspaper had done its usual nightly checks with local law enforcement agents on Saturday and had been told nothing was going on. Armstrong started leaving messages at the newspaper at 8 a.m., reached a reporter by 11 a.m. and the newspaper posted its story on the Web at 1:48 p.m. local time Sunday. At 3:34 p.m. eastern time, The Associated Press finally flashed the news: "Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a hunting trip in Texas." Fitzgerald said he is "mystified" about the chain of events and that the public should have been notified much earlier, even if the shooter had been some random guy. Even on Monday, the newspaper struggled to get a copy of the accident report. "I think it has become a bigger deal than Mr. Cheney and/or the White House anticipated," the editor said.
That is perhaps the understatement of the day. ...On Monday night, the Vice President's office said in its first written statement about the incident that although Cheney was carrying a $125 Texas non-resident season hunting license, he did not have the required $7 stamp for for hunting upland game birds. The statement said the Vice President had overpaid by buying a Federal stamp he already possessed. "The staff asked for all permits needed, but was not informed of the $7 upland game bird stamp requirement," the statement said. the check was sent Monday, the statement said.
Much more at:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1159347,00.html
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