Hunting Under the Influence

Operation Save Dick Full interview on Fox

QUESTION: You asked him about alcohol being consumed
on premises.

HUME: I did.

QUESTION: And what did he say about that?

HUME: He said he had a beer at lunch
and that had been many hours earlier. And it was dusk, around 5:00 p.m., when
this incident happened. And he said that, you know, they had lunch out
in the field, a barbecue, and he had a beer. But you said you don’t
hunt with people who have been drinking. He said no one was drinking. He said
they went back to the ranch afterwards, took a break after that, and went out
about 3:00 and so you’re four or five hours distanced from the last alcohol
that he consumed. And he said no one was drinking, not he nor anyone else.

Hunting
Under the Influence

They can't even get these facts straight. You're either drinking
while your hunting or your not. Period.

You also don't get credit for coming forward and “taking
responsibility” four days after a shooting accident, in an obvious cya
effort to stop the political bleeding. If you want to come clean you do it openly,
with everyone, not just the anointed spinmeisters of Fox “News.”

There is also the issue of refusing to speak to Texas authorities.
There's not another hunter in America who could get away with this nonsense.

On Fox, after the snippet appeared, they continued their campaign
to rehabilitate Mr. Cheney. One Republican analyst said that the American public
will feel sorry for Dick Cheney because he has to live with the fact that he
shot his friend. Oh yeah, it's all about poor Dick.

This is an issue that middle America, blue collar workers, regular
folk understand. We're part of that crowd. My husband is a gas technician. He also knows
what it's like to be shot and grievously wounded.

Let me tell you a story. One night working late, before I met
him, he was coming out of an apartment in the projects, in the low income area
of Las Vegas, when two young men approached him. Both of them had guns. My husband
knew he was going to be shot, instinctively knew it. He looked in the shooters
face and could tell the guy was deadly serious. He was going to shoot him no matter what. He had to do something fast. He screamed, “Fuck you,
go ahead and shoot,” as if he were Custer at the last stand, as he describes
it. His human cry startled them both. It was the last thing they expected. He
began walking back to the apartment he'd just been in, when 6 shots rang out,
one hitting him in the side. A lady opened her door, he asked her to call 911,
but she didn't have a phone. So he walked back to his truck, tried to call dispatch,
but couldn't reach them. He laid down on the ground, then started drifting in
and out of consciousness, because the bleeding was very bad at this point. His
main goal was trying to keep the blood from flowing any faster. He had to get
his heart rate down. He remembers people gathering then… The only thing that saved his life is that he was hit with
a 25 caliber round. My husband would add, they were also lousy shots.

In fact, my husband almost died that night. If it weren't for
a second operation in the early morning hours the next day and a visiting trauma
specialist from Cook Country hospital in Chicago, he and I would never have
met. He still carries the bullet in his body because it was too dangerous to
take it out.

Today, the Virginia legislature is considering imposing
strict alcohol blood levels on hunters. The gun nuts, as opposed to sober
hunters and gun enthusiasts, believe this impedes their right to bear arms.
It's one of the reasons we don't belong to the NRA, this type of nonsense. Evidently
they also believe it impedes their freedom to get wasted while carrying a loaded
weapon.

Everyone knows that there are hunters who drink and shoot, but
they aren't respected and it certainly isn't the serious hunter crowd, by and
large. My reference, as you know by now, is my husband. The thought of drinking
and hunting or shooting makes him blanch. It's just not done.

Here's what reader SaltyPig
had to say about it all.

… the big failure of the cops was in
bowing to some ridiculous “next day” appointment, as if ordered
by royalty. testing cheney for drunkenness then was pointless. …”

However, you have to consider that Cheney was being driven around
while drinking, supposedly one beer, but then again no one was drinking, oh,
what the hell, we still don't know. But we do know that everyone had a loaded
gun and was shooting. On Armstrong's ranch, it wasn't like they were out in
the field enjoying nature, so the rules weren't exactly being followed. That's
blatantly obvious by now.

The other issue isn't small and it's that Dick Cheney is not a
healthy man. Take a look at possible
medications for Dick Cheney, though this site is very new to me. This snippet
is staggering.

Medications for heart attack survivors:

ACE inhibitor such as lisinopril (Zestril), or AR blocker
anti-cholesterol “statin” such as atorvastatin (Lipitor)
aspirin
beta-blocker such as atenolol (Tenormin), metoprolol, or carvedilol (Coreg)

fish oil capsules
nitroglycerin prn
second lipid-lowering medication
second blood pressure medication

For generalized atherosclerotic disease:
pentoxifylline (Trental)
sildenafil (Viagra) prn

For left ventricular dysfunction:
furosemide (Lasix)
beta blocker as noted above (esp. carvedilol)
ACE inhibitor/AR blocker as noted above
digitalis (Digoxin)
aldosterone blocker such as spironolactone or eplerenone (Inspra)

For gout:
allopurinol (Zyloprim)
indomethacin (Indocin) prn

Other possible medications include more aggressive
anti-coagulation, e.g. with warfarin (Coumadin). If Cheney's “metabolic
disorders” are related to glucose intolerance, he may be taking oral
anti-diabetic medicines.

Dick Cheney was hunting under the influence, name the influence,
it's our best guess right now. He thought he wouldn't have to face the public.
He attempted to handle it in secret. Then when the cry became so loud where
did he go? Fox News.

Middle America understands this story. Here in Nevada it rings
out loud and clear. The disdain for Dick Cheney will be deep. Any hunter in
this state would never have gotten Dick Cheney privileges. That's something regular
folks can understand too. Let's face it, privilege has it's perks. Like when you shoot
someone you're hunting with, after having at least one beer on top of meds,
but you don't have to talk to authorities until the next day and then it's through appointment only.

Vice President Dick Cheney doesn't have the courage to face the
American media, without Brit as a buffer. Why? What is he afraid of and why
should he get credit for “taking responsibility” now? Cheney doesn't
have the courage to stand up and tell the whole truth because there are things
he doesn't want us to know. He can't even get his stories straight with Brit
Hume about the beer or beers consumed. To top it all off, this is a man with
a serious heart condition, drinking in the afternoon, then going out to shoot
quail, with the final chapter of the day ending with a member of his hunting
party getting seriously wounded.

Believe me, middle America understands what that means. My husband sure does.

The question screams even louder now.

Cheney says he was “about” 30 yards away. We know he
had a beer, or did he, they can't decide, but yes he did. He's taking serious
heart medication to keep him alive. Right now Mr. Whittington is recovering
from a “mild heart attack” and still in ICU.

Why did the Secret Service keep the Texas authorities away from
Dick Cheney after a serious hunting accident, demanding that the police make
an appointment to talk with the shooter responsible? We simply do not know.

UPDATE: Digby has a very interesting post: Cheney was drinking all day.