One other point about the Cheney shotgun goof.
There’s been some questioning about why the White House waited a day to notify the press about what happened. Apparently, they never did. They left it to the property owner, Katharine Armstrong, to announce it to the public.
The WaPo account says …
It was Armstrong’s decision to alert the news media. Cheney’s office made no public announcement, deciding to defer to Armstrong because the incident had taken place on her property. Armstrong called the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, and when a reporter from the paper called the White House, the vice president’s office confirmed the account.
Cheney’s office referred other reporters to Armstrong for a witness account, but after speaking to some members of the media yesterday afternoon, Armstrong stopped returning phone calls.
The Times, meanwhile, was able to press the point a bit more fully.
Asked why the vice president’s office had made no announcement about the accident, Ms. McBride said, “We deferred to the Armstrongs regarding what had taken place at their ranch.”
The vice president shoots someone seriously enough to require ICU treatment in the hospital and the White House doesn’t see fit to make a public announcement? It’s left to the owner of the ranch to let people know?
Clearly, it’s not really left up to her. It’s a passive decision. They don’t want to touch it presumably. So they leave it to Armstrong to be the public face of it.
Still, very weird. But, soup to nuts, par for the course.
