TIME: How Cheney Stalled News Reports of Hunting Accident

[kskiska]

Slow Leak: How Cheney Stalled News Reports of Hunting Accident

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."

(snip)

…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.

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http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1159347,00.html

[CottonBear]

1. Cheney is and has been in control until (maybe) now. We'll see. n/t

[NanceGreggs]

2. With THIS Admin, you only have TWO choices ...

(a) This is a cover-up story
(b) This is an incompetence story

It's your classic lose/lose scenario for America ...

[expatriot]

3. c) both of the above

they try to cover-up their incompetence.

and there is a bit of a silver lining in it, thank god they are an incompetent evil, or else their cover-ups would work.

[rodeodance]

4. yes, most likely both of the above.