Carlson Has Questions About Cheney, Beer And Quail

[JABBS]

"The President is very satisfied with the way this matter has been addressed. I think that at this point, what we are doing is looking forward to the future, not looking back to the past," said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, at this afternoon's press briefing.

Apparently, President Bush is satisfied that Vice President Cheney's shooting accident was disclosed in a timely fashion. McClellan offered the above when asked. Asked again, he advised the reporter to ask Bush himself.

The White House is moving on, and people shouldn't expect otherwise. The four days that it took for Cheney to speak publicly on the subject were long days for Washington Republicans.

Yet, in some circles, questions remain. And while the empty conservative spin is to suggest that this entire episode has been caused by a Cheney-hating White House press corps, none other than conservative pundit Tucker Carlson remains bothered by those unanswered questions.

Bush may not be curious, but Carlson, on last night's edition of his MSNBC show The Situation, was very straightforward in when talking with former Bush deputy assistant Brad Blakeman.

Carlson's beef: the beer Cheney told Fox News Channel's Brit Hume he ingested at lunch, roughly four hours before he accidentally shot 78-year-old GOP fundraiser Harry Whittington.

Here's a piece of the transcript:

CARLSON: (T)he question of whether the vice president was drinking before he shot, even one beer, I think is significant, because you‘re not supposed to do that.

BLAKEMAN: Well, that‘s not so. It‘s—it‘s a situation where the—the vice president admitted he had one beer at lunch five hours prior to the incident. And as a matter of law and as a matter of science, that one beer could not have had an impact on the vice president one way or the other.

CARLSON: I don‘t know that we know it was five hours before the incident. I don‘t think in his interview today, unless you‘ve spoken to him separately, I don‘t think he was that specific. But we don‘t — and of course, because you know, we don‘t have a blood alcohol reading from the vice president after the shooting, we don‘t know exactly what was in his blood. But we do know that it is considered totally unacceptable — and I‘m sure you know this and I can tell you if you don‘t — to drink before shooting. People just don‘t do it, and they don‘t do it because it‘s a very dangerous sport and it gets more dangerous if you drink.

BLAKEMAN: It depends when you ingested the drink. And if you ingested the drink five hours or four hours even before shooting, one beer, it cannot have an deleterious effect on you as a matter of science. It‘s completely out of your system.

CARLSON: That‘s interesting. I don‘t think that that‘s settled science. And I ...

BLAKEMAN: I have it right here with me.

CARLSON: Let me just finish my sentence. I don‘t think that we know that what medications the vice president is on. I think we know that he is on some medications to respond to the coronary problems that he‘s had. And it‘s not clear what effect the mixture of beer with those medicines has. And I guess my question to you, Brad, is why take the chance? The reason people don‘t drink before they hunt — and they‘re really uptight about it in most hunts. I mean, they say you can‘t drink period until you put the gun down for the rest of the day. And the reason they do that is why take the chance? Why did he take the chance? Why do this?

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Is Carlson on a (no pun intended) wild goose chase? Or is this story worth pursuing?

Consider that Katharine Armstrong -- who Cheney allowed to break the story via the <em>Corpus Christi Caller-Times</em>, rather than via a statement from his office to the White House press corps -- offered three different versions of what alcohol was available to the Cheney-Whittington hunting party.

She told Scripps Howard News Service: “No one was drinking.”

She told NBC News: “There may be a beer or two in (the coolers), but remember not everyone in the party was shooting.”

CNN reported that she never saw Cheney or Whittington “drink at all on the day of the shooting until after the accident occurred, when the vice president fixed himself a cocktail back at the house.”

Of course, none of those quite match up with what Cheney told Fox News Channel.

Meanwhile, the sherriff's report claims that when Whittington was interviewed on Monday, the interviewing officer said Whittington “explained foremost there was no alcohol during the hunt.” Today, Whittington’s doctors said again that they had “no comment” about whether blood tests have revealed any alcohol in his blood. No blood test was ever given to Cheney.

So, while Bush is "very satisfied" with the information available, questions remain. And if the White House has its way, those questions will remain unanswered.

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This item first appeared at JABBS.