Cheney Drank Cocktail(s) AFTER THE SHOOTING....

[Junkdrawer]

Here's how worried Cheney was about being tested for alcohol after the shooting:

...

CNN today reports that Armstrong had told CNN 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."

...

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002033578

And why was he so confidant? Well, two words: "Kenedy County"

Maybe there is a simple answer to this, but if so, it escapes me. Why does Kenedy County have a Sheriff and why is it a county?

More than 22 million people live in Texas. According to the Census Bureau, the population of Kenedy County is 407 persons. There are approximately 138 households. There are 4 non-farm privately owned businesses with employees.

But it has received 1,441 federal grants. Here are more statistics.

Did the ranchers buy themselves a county government? It sure looks like it.

...

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014023.html

[babylonsister]

1. So this shoots down all the speculation about whether

Cheney, with all his heart problems and meds, drinks. Hmmmm.....

[Junkdrawer]

5. I honestly think it took four days to get him sober and calm enough...

to face Brit "I Love You Mr. Cheney" Hume

:rofl:

[Pirate Smile]

31. If anyone missed it, here is a link to Letterman last night. Hilarious

http://www.canofun.com/cof/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=16766

[txindy]

2. This can't be right. Matalin says he's a "teetotaler."

And she never lies. :eyes:

[Elidor]

3. It's hard work shooting lawyers

I'd have a stiff drink, too.

[txindy]

4. Nice graphic!

:scared: yet still :rofl:

:toast:

[berni_mccoy]

6. But, but, Cheney is a Teetotaler!

:sarcasm:

btw, if you haven't heard, that's the new meme issued by the BushCo 1.9 BILLION DOLLAR PR machine.

[SammyWinstonJack]

10. Long Island Ice Teas

[BR_Parkway]

7. Not to defend Darth, but if I shot someone under any circumstances

I think I'd need a drink or two afterwards.

But it would have given him the perfect out if the cops had shown up and pressed for a breathalyzer test.

[Junkdrawer]

9. Doesn't that show a certain arrogance?

If I had an auto accident, I don't think I'd toss back a few waiting for the cops.

[nashville_brook]

40. i think it shows that armstrong clearly has no finesse with reporters

which makes the yarn about it being her story to sell to the corpos christi paper seem really lame.

arrogance i can see.
could also be self-medicating.
at any rate it seems he was not in possession of himself.

[mac56]

11. Maybe after you did the right thing

and you talked to the cops.

[livetohike]

12. This is probably the reason the cops weren't called

Not because of a drink before the shooting - but because of the drinks after.

[yellowcanine]

29. But I would do it AFTER presenting myself to the sheriff for a blood

alcohol test, that is, assuming I had reason to believe it would show I had no alcohol in my system.

[BR_Parkway]

46. But if you were worried about an alcohol test, the simplest defense

would be to take a stiff drink before hand and blame your nerves!

[mzteris]

8. this doesn't make sense

on the more statistics part of Kenedy County:

Median age: 34.2 years
Males: 52.4%, Females: 47.6%
Average household size in Kenedy County: 2.97
Median household income: $25,000 (year 2000)
Median house value: $22,500 (year 2000)
Median montly rent in 2000: $425
Median monthly costs for houses with a mortgage in Kenedy County in 2000: $450

[Junkdrawer]

14. Lots of servants, few masters. And note they used Median...

median = half the number above and half below.

so if five incomes were 10,000, 10,000, 25,000, 2,000,000,000, and 2,000,000,000 the median is 25,000

[bunkerbuster1]

20. And that's reported income

I'm sure these honest ranchers declare EVERY PENNY, of course.

[liberal N proud]

17. It is a place like no other...

It is the Twilight Zone

[gauguin57]

13. Was he having cocktails with the female ambassador?

http://www.edstrong.blog-city.com/cheney_scandal_booze_sex_and_shooting_quail.htm

[Carni]

15. Sounds like this is more cover

So she puts out there that he drank AFTER the shooting?

I am assuming just in case by some fluke somebody comes forth and says Cheney was buzzed...now they can say well he drank AFTER the shooting (probably out of emotional distress they will say.)

This is odd and IMO has to signify some elaborate ruse.

Were there any ranch hands or other hired domestic help at that ranch?

If they were isolated from any other witnesses then why even go there and state publicly that he drank afterwards?

Something is up with this.

[Jackpine Radical]

16. Lemme tell ya a true story...

There was this guy in my home town who was fallin'down drunk when he drove his car into a telephone pole. He extricated himself, staggered to a bar 2 blocks away, sloshed down a tumbler or 2 of booze, & called the cops. When they got there they couldn't establish that he had been drunk while driving because he had drunk so much AFTER THE ACCIDENT in front of witnesses. That was in the days before accurate breathalyzers.

Oh--and this is not an autobiographical story.

[Carni]

18. I wonder when (date time) CNN did that interview with armstrong

Where she recalled him "fixing a cocktail" after shooting his cohort--it had to be on Sunday or afterwards right? And he would have already been sobered up from Saturday so i am trying to figure out why she would deliberately throw this info out there? I still wonder if there were witnesses there who might squeal. It's the only sense I can make of Armstrong even offering this tidbit to CNN.

[Junkdrawer]

21. From Yesterday "Cheney' Ass is in a Sling - There are too Many Witnesses"

This was not a planned event. Lots of folks are now sweating bullets (pun intended) because they now have information that could bring Cheney down and they know what happens to folks who "know too much".

Take Katharine Armstrong, the host of the party. She's the one who insisted on calling the local paper. She's the one whose "beer or two" comments were scrubbed from MSNBC. Why? She's scared, that's why. She doesn't want to be the only one (or one of the only ones) who knows Dicky Boy was loaded in more ways that one when he shot Whittington. Lord know what else she is going to say.

And then there's Whittington himself. Will he just shut up and take one (or one more) for the team. And what about his wife and kids and grandkids. Not to mention the Secret Service and Cheney's mistress.

And here's where it gets interesting: the obvious move is for Cheney to resign and put a hand-picked front runner in place. But will he? And if he doesn't, he knows WAY too much to be pushed.

So pop the corn. The next few days will be VERY interesting, to say the least.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=430939&mesg_id=430939

[Carni]

24. Many good points here!

Armstrong is AFRAID of Cheney--that's an angle I had not thought of.

[Karenina]

37. Exactly WHY should she be afraid?

HER *MOTHER* APPOINTED CHENEY CEO OF HALLIBURTON.

[Dangerously Amused]

44. Drinking immediately after an accident is a strategy

... used by repeat DUI offenders who are savvy to legal proceedings, and it is fairly effective. It makes it more difficult for the prosecutor to prove the blood alcohol content at the time of the accident, even with a valid blood or breath test and even with an expert witness to extrapolate the information. Cheney has been convicted of multiple DUIs and is certainly in a position to know how to throw the evidence when getting caught in a situation where it matters whether or not the defendant/potential defendant was under the influence at the time of the incident. And that is exactly what he was doing, throwing the evidence, just in case.

[daleo]

19. Now we have a beer at lunch, and a cocktail

The truth comes out slowly. I don't doubt there was more, before and after the shooting.

[thecrow]

22. The cops had to catch him at 8am before

he might have had a "wake me up" drink in the morning?

[Junkdrawer]

23. LOL. See Post#5 above,, n/t

[Junkdrawer]

25. .

[The Backlash Cometh]

26. Now I'm convinced that man was drunk before it happened.

Drinking AFTER it happened would annul any alcohol test, now wouldn't it?

[Junkdrawer]

32. He was completely, and 100% confident that he would NEVER be tested...

See: Kenedy County link in the OP

See Also: Cheney's arrogant control of what used to be called "The Free Press".

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

38. I wonder how many cocktails he had for breakfast that day

or whether he was hungover from the day before, on the day he shot Whittington. This is beginning to sound like Cheney has a disease called alcoholism. Mix a hangover with heart medication and you've got a very dangerous scenario as far as reflexes and judgement are concerned.

[SpiralHawk]

27. A little something to steady the nerves, eh, Dickie?

Guilty consciounce bothering you?

The answers to your problems will not be found in a bottle.

[yellowcanine]

28. "There may have been beer in coolers but nobody had any"????

Does this woman take us for idiots? Since when does a hostess monitor how many beers her guests are scarfing from the cooler at a picnic? This woman is lying.

[lonestarnot]

30. Have you ever heard the drink a six pack defense?

If you have an accident and you are close to a store, you run in buy a six pack open and dump all the beer and tell the cops you were scared so badly you had to have a drink... yeah sure dickiedick we believe you. ugh hugh. :eyes:

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

33. Kenedy County is right out of an old western movie like "The Violent Men"

or "Pale Rider" where one cattle baron owns the town, the sheriff, the post office, the general store, and virtually everything else.

[Junkdrawer]

35. Yep. That's the point. Cheney could slow roast Mexican children on a spit

if he wanted in Kenedy County.

[sandnsea]

34. This is CLASSIC alcohol cover-up

The guy was shit-faced, no doubt about it. There's entirely too many lies and what keeps coming out is, drink after drink. And since it happened on that woman's ranch, she'd be in trouble too if old Whittington died. That's why she's taking point on this.

Are the rich above the law? Or can they get drunked up and have shoot 'em ups and use government resources and stick us with the bill, and cackle off with no consequence at all.

[Trish1168]

36. The Armstrongs have been associated with the military industrial complex

They are from the King ranch, the largest ranch in Texas. An Armstrong ran Kellog Brown and Root (KBR is now owned by Halliburton) during the Vietnam war and LBJ was very close to them. Its all so incestuous.

The root of all evil in the US is Texas Oil money.

[BrklynLiberal]

42. They bankrolled Cheney's AND KKKarl Rove's road to becoming millionaires!

http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/ContributorsAndPaybacks/pioneer_profile.cfm?pioneer_ID=509

Pioneer Tobin Armstrong’s ancestor, Texas Ranger John B. Armstrong, bought the beginnings of the Armstrong Ranch in 1882 with the $4,000 bounty he received for capturing outlaw John Wesley Hardin. In 1944 Tobin’s older brother wed an heir of legendary King Ranch (see Fausto Yturria), linking two of the biggest ranches in Texas. The Armstrong Ranch has since gone global, with tracts in Australia and South America. In recent years, Tobin and his wife, Anne, have hosted many GOP dignitaries--including the first and second President Bush--on their 50,000-acre Armstrong Ranch in South Texas. “We go out when the dew is still on the grass, and then hunt until we shoot our limit,” Tobin said in 2000 of his ranch outings with Dick Cheney. “Then we pick a fine spot and have a wild game picnic lunch.” True conservatives might choke on their javelina steaks if they knew that Tobin Armstrong dunned the government for $11,336 in farm subsidies between 1995 and 2002, according to the Environmental Working Group. Anne Armstrong served as: a close advisor to President Nixon; President Ford’s British Ambassador; and approved covert actions on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under Reagan. A veteran of blue-chip corporate boards, Anne Armstrong was a Halliburton director when that corporation hired Cheney. She is Kay Bailey Hutchison’s best friend, having helped launch the senator’s career as Republican National Committee co-chair in 1971. George W. Bush appointed Anne Armstrong as a Texas A&M regent in 1997. She and her husband were part of Laura Bush’s delegation to the funeral of Queen Mother Elizabeth in 2002. As a Kenedy County Commissioner in 2001, Tobin Armstrong expressed serious reservations about a short-lived Bush administration plan to relocate a Navy bomb-testing site from Puerto Rico to the fragile sand dunes of a local beach. Daughter Katharine Armstrong--formerly Katherine Idsal--and ex-son-in-law Warren Idsal also are Pioneers. President Bush invited Tobin, Anne and Katharine Armstrong to a White House sleepover.

http://www.bnfp.org/neighborhood/Lemann_Rove_NYM.htm

Rove left the Bush pre-Presidential operation to work in the gubernatorial campaign of Bill Clements, an oilman who in 1978 became Texas's first Republican governor since Reconstruction. Rove was appointed Clements's chief of staff. In 1981, he left to set up a direct-mail business in Austin called Karl Rove + Company. This put him in a position to make more money than you can as a politician's full-time employee, and allowed him to work for many Republican candidates at the same time. Rove had the imprimatur of Texas's Republican aristocracy from the beginning, through his connection to the Bush family and to Clements. An early financier of Karl Rove + Company was Tobin Armstrong, the owner of a Texas ranch (it was on land leased from Armstrong Rove and Bill Frist were planning to go hunting) and the husband of Anne Armstrong, a former Republican Cabinet officer. Becoming chairman of the College Republicans provided Rove with an introduction to such people, which may be one reason that winning mattered so much to him; it also seems that Rove, the self-made man, gets pleasure as well as practical advantage from his association, with the Texas upper crust, people who give off the glow of ease, charm, and connection which he detected in George W. Bush the first time they met.

[Catherine Vincent]

39. This man can't be trusted.

[DoYouEverWonder]

43. He certainly doesn't show good judgement

anymore.

[hopeisaplace]

41. I need a drink just from reading this sight sometimes

*yikes* *stress*

[Wilms]

45. K&R n/t