Nixon: 18 Missing Minutes - Cheney: 18 Missing Hours - Why The Gap?

[Dunvegan]

18 minutes missing here (Nixon WH tapes)...18 hours missing there (Time between Cheney shooting Wittington and first news story filed.)

After a while, you'd THINK it would all add up.

Eat The Press
Michelle Pilecki

02.13.2006
Trying to Sort Out the Discrepancies in Cheney Shooting Story

The scoop on the shooting accident involving Vice President Cheney belongs to the political reporter at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times who "had built up a strong source relationship" with the owner of the ranch where the shooting occured, according to Editor & Publisher. The reporter, Jaime Powell, then confirmed the report with Cheney's office in Washington.
E&P notes: "The Cheney spokesman Powell spoke with, Lea Anne McBride, would not comment on whether the White House would have ever released the information had the Caller-Times not contacted them."

That seems to be the top question, right up there with: why was there an 18-hour delay in reporting the story? It's not like the Caller-Times beat reporters weren't checking with law enforcement on their usual regular basis, E&P says.

Francesco, at the Corpus Christi paper, said she felt it was a bit odd that her newsroom had not received any information about the shooting since "we often call law enforcement in area, even on weekends. We checked in and didn’t hear anything about it."

[Alpharetta]

1. The missing White House emails piss me off more

Covering up the leak of a CIA operative. Unbelievable there has been no furor about this.

[radfringe]

2. they needed the time

to get the talking points, spin and buzzwords together

if you read any of the stories - it's being downplayed as a minor accident and it's not cheney's fault

should come as no surprise - the bushies have never been open and transparent about anything.

[punpirate]

3. Given mention of intensive care...

... and transport by helicopter from Kerrville to Corpus, I've been sort of musing about this m'self.

Now, there are three distinct possibilities, to my mind. The first is that it's high-profile because Cheney is involved and the guy shot was a well-heeled Republican contributor and Gov. Dubya appointee. The second is that, well, the rich do get a lot better health care than the rest of us. The third is that local medical staff saw something that got them pretty nervous.

The reports were that Whittington was hit in the cheek, neck and chest. Center of the blast might have been his neck. Now, from photographs, he looks like he's a bit on the thin and stringy side, and probably didn't have much padding in his neck. What if the local medics saw some abnormal bleeding near a carotid artery and thought that might have been nicked by a pellet? At his age, a carotid with a weak spot could blow out like an old inner tube, and without a good surgical staff nearby, Mr. Whittington would be on the other end of the funeral business, so to speak. So, rather than take chances, they pack him up and send him off to a bigger hospital, just in case. ???


On edit, I suppose I should put that in the context of the questions in the original post. They weren't about to issue a story that would sound stupid and self-serving if the guy died later. Any comments made to the press beforehand could be attributed to Armstrong, not Cheney. CYA, all the way.

[flordehinojos]

4. DAMN BASTARDS! they rape the economy, bomb a country, kill hundreds of

people, twist reality, loot the national treasury and they have the gall to say everything is peachy pink, or peaches 'n cream, or, "oooops, we just bruised you"... and they admit to any bruises they inflict, only when they are caught with no way out of their atrocities. damn bastards, damn bastards, damn bastards--my way of saying, stupid assholes!

[Vidar]

5. Why The Gap? Rosemary Woods is dead & Scooter is occupied.

[Javaman]

6. I thought it was 16 minutes, but what do I know...

on a side note, I recall reading about 2-3 years ago how there was a new technology that could possible resurrect the "lost" 16 minutes from the nixon tapes. That was the first and last I ever heard of that.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

7. Needed to get the alcohol out of his system? That wouldn't look

good in the papers.

At the briefing this morning, a reporter said that secret service wouldn't allow an officer on the scene to interview Cheney. I happen to think that this is a big deal, but they sort of swept it under the carpet.

[Dunvegan]

8. Maybe the quail hunt took place in quail scrub in the "Rosemary Woods."