Tuesday, February 14, 2006

A Far-Out Theory About The Cheney Shooting

Michael Moore hinted at something interesting on his website. Could the guy Cheney shot, Harry Whittington, be dead already?

What if Cheney killed him outright, or injured him badly enough that he died within hours of the shooting? That might explain why there was an 18-hour delay in telling ANYONE.

In this theory, it takes Armstrong 18 hours to alert the Corpus-Christi paper because Karl Rove needs all the time he can get to firm up everyone's story and present a united front to a press corps already skeptical of almost everything this White House tells them. Armstrong, the owner of the ranch on which the shooting occured, said Whittington "got peppered pretty good" by Cheney's gun. Which caused Jon Stewart to quip that Whittington had been "seasoned to within an inch of his life."

At any rate, it's now very clear Whittington's injuries are worse than the White House make them sound. Cheney hasn't made a public appearance or said anything to anyone about it. If this was just a mishap resulting in no serious injury, then it seems natural that Cheney would have popped up to quell rising suspicion. Or what about a bedside interview with the injured Whittington, alert and smiling in his hospital bed, a little bloodied up, but altogether all right? Nothing.

The shot supposedly came from 30 yards away and entered into Whittington's right side. Pellets punctured his heart which caused him to have a heart-attack this morning. According to hospital officials, he's been moved back into the ICU today after his heart-attack. The human heart's on the left side of the body. For birdshot pellets to go all the way through a hunter's protective gear, his clothes, break the skin, burrow halfway through the meat of his torso, and then embed themselves deep into one's heart, 90 feet would seem a little far for these injuries to be plausible. I dunno. Not a doctor or a hunter, but it doesn't sound like we know the whole story.

I'm not saying it's likely that Whittington's dead and this is some massive cover-up, but if Whitting does die sometime this week while in his Secret Service-guarded hospital room, this whacko conspiracy theory would suddenly become a little more respectable. I mean, c'mon. It's Dick Cheney we're talking about. Can we really put anything past this guy? Even this?

At any rate, conspiracy theories are fun.

14 comments:

blankfist said...

They are fun! And, I like where Moore is going with this even if I detest the mere sight of him. I don't wish this man any ill, but it would be interesting if he wound up dead in a couple days from a heart attack...

And wouldn't that make Cheney guilty of involuntary man slaughter? He'd be a felon if convicted. Of course, Bush would pardon him if it ever got to that stage, but can't a man dream?

blankfist said...

By the way, what were you doing on Michael Moore's site?

Miller Sturtevant said...

I was listening to Sean Hannity and he brought it up. I went to the Michael Moore site to see what Hannity was talking about, and there it was. The mere hint of an insinuation, but to hear Hannity tell it, Moore was demanding Cheney be charged with first degree murder. Hannity's a big fat poo-head, and I hate his big lying face. (By the way, I listen to Sean Hannity when Randi Rhodes is on commercial break because I hate commercials even more than Sean Hannity. And I can only listen to him for short periods of time -- then I start to wig out and punch the steering wheel.)

Also, though I have reservations about and quibbles with Michael Moore and some of the assertions he makes in films, I still think he's an important social critic, and an effective critic of this administration, which makes him ok with me. It seems like these days, slamming Michael Moore is a quick way for liberals to tell conservatives and moderates that they're not THAT liberal. Maybe it's because liberals are mad that Fahrenheit 911 didn't win the election for Kerry. Maybe that's it. Anyway. I'm going to go visit his website again.

Anonymous said...

Better question: what the hell are you doing listening to anything that comes out of Sean Hannity's glory hole???

I'm with BOC. You're on notice, Crane.

Miller Sturtevant said...

I listen to Hannity for the same reason I sometimes tune into Bill O'Reilly: for the comedy. They straight up lie and it makes me giggle until it makes me sick. Also, if you hear one side of the spectrum for an hour at a stretch, which is what I get from Air America, and you agree with everything they say, you start to wonder how anyone can disagree with this. So you tune in to the diametric opposite of the political spectrum and it's shocking. It's like a face full of cold water after a hot shower. You think, these people are legitimately cuckoo for cocoa puffs. For instance, last week, Hannity was trying to sell his listeners on the idea that the Democrats were trying to give al qaeda a leg up in the war on terror by opposing these illegal wiretaps. Hannity lied and said that, "If Osama calls up the US, the democrats don't want us to be able to listen to that conversation for up to 72 hours. How does that protect the country?" And this is a straight up lie, obviously, because a) Hannity said it, and b) the NSA has 72 hours to get a retroactive warrant for the wiretap. They can listen in LEGALLY on any phone call they want, but they have to seek a warrant from the FISA court within 72 hours. That's plenty of time. So I listen to Hannity to see what the right's lying about now. I sit at home all day -- this is how I get my kicks.

Also: Cheney update: Katherine Armstrong (the owner of the ranch Cheney was hunting on when he shot the dude in the face) told MSNBC that some members of the hunting party had been drinking. The comment was quickly stricken from the MSNBC website. Don't know why they did that. So if SOME members of the hunting party were drinking, that could mean Cheney was one of the ones who'd had one too many. NYT is reporting tomorrow that if the old man with the birdshot in his face dies, Cheney will face a grand jury in Texas.

You know, one part of me is glad that Cheney's having so much bad shit rain down on him this week, but on the other hand, what could it lead to? Resignation? If then, Bush would put in someone they'd like to see as the Repub nominee, and they could choose someone who wasn't Darth Vader, someone the GOP thinks could win a national election and that person might have a leg up to be the next president. A Republican for another 4 years? Peggy and I are going to have to move to Europe, and I HATE Europe! Hmmm. Maybe I shouldn't be hoping so hard that Cheney resigns in disgrace.

blankfist said...

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Crane you are lying to yourself. Everyday you lie to yourself, but let me clarify something first: you have swung more to the left with every passing year. At one point, you were a Democrat. You know, 'a liberal', but now you are in NCSA era Paul territory. That's right, you're a straight up 'leftist'.

[shiver]

Michael Moore is a douche. Period. I went to his site today after reading this post and... um... His write up about Cheney (or rather the conspiracy he has imagined) is not "The mere hint of an insinuation". He's diametrically opposed to anything Republican. ANYTHING. Even the good things, which may seem few and far between these days. If Bush came out tomorrow and said 'I've seen the light. Our founding fathers wanted all men to be created equal, and, well, gays are men, and they should be entitled to gay marriage', Moore would find some fascist slant to that!

Soon, you will be a Marxist Crane. But, we'll still love you. Except for Paul. It seems the further 'left' you move, the further left Paul moves, and... well.. there really isn't too many other places for Paul to go left after 'Anarchism'.

By the way, was I the only one that thought it funny to imagine the 'Black Sabbath' Randy Rhodes when Crane was writing about listening to Hannity when RR is on commercial break?

blankfist said...

You'll enjoy this, Crane: http://billoreilly.ytmnd.com/

Clay McClane said...

My personal favorite part of all of this is McLellan telling the press that they can focus on the Veep gunning his friend down with shotgun if they really want to, but the White House wants to focus on the needs of the American people, like making healthcare affordable.

Good one, Scott!

Anonymous said...

Man, this Cheney shooting has turned into quite a controversy.

Even if I am ultra-left - I do see some good things about conservative values.

1) Isolationalism and protectionism.

2) Guns (I wouldn't own one, but you never know when you'll need to use it to protect yourself from the hybrid gov't/corporate plutocracy Baby Hughie.

3) Spending what you have, not going into credit card, debt - being fiscally responsible. Good oversight on public beauracracy (sp?) gone wild.

4) Staunch supporters of civil liberties (old guard at least).

5) And believe it or not - old conservatives promoted environmental conservation - including Nixon (except Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam where he and the previous 2 democratic admin carpet bombed them with Napalm).

So, these are some of the things that I like about conservatives.

Things I don't like would be in the millions - here's a few -

1) Overthrowing or severly disrupting democratic countries in order to steal their natural resources.

2) Promoting a heirarchal country club society to be filled with mega rich and a vast amount of wage slave serfs.

3) Ultra-Patriotic hypocrites who want every one else to die for their idelogical causes.

4) Installing a narrow minded version of religion into the public sphere. Forcing it down our throats through gov't "faith based orgs" making us pay taxes for it.

5) Making corporations "real people" and giving them the rights of citizenry to colonize or public commons and social consciousness. Making the public pay taxes to subsidize corporate growth and give Executives more money.

6) Playing the victim like pussies in order to discredit anyone that doesn't agree with their hate filled agenda. Usually racist.

7) Pretending that the environment doesn't exist and that we can keep pillaging until Jesus comes again.

Dude - I could go on and on...

PAPADEAS

Anonymous said...

This blog is such a boner kill...

Anyway, I'm going on record right here and now saying A) I hope this lawyer guy doesn't die B) If he does die it really doesn't matter that it's Cheney who shot him, or if it was lil' Maggie Simpson - it's only news because he's famous C) Nothing's going to happen to Cheney. Period. D) why would we even want Cheney to get in trouble for lying about a hunting accident that adversely affected one rich republican when he and his cohorts have been lying about things that have directly and indirectly lead to the death of thousands of non-rich non-republicans? That's like nailing Capone for tax fraud. It won't be enough E) I remember driving from Ohio to NC prior to the invasion of Iraq and finding Hannity on the AM dial (that's how bad radio is) and hearing him say conclusively that the United States would be greeted as liberators. He had no doubts whatsoever, no hesitations. I'm sure if you asked him about it now he'd be happy to tell you he never said any such thing.

Boner kill. Total boner kill.

blankfist said...

With a quick call to reason, you'd think it should involuntary manslaughter, but then there's this other law which states 'implied risk', and quail hunting sure enough has that. Implied risk is legal speak for 'you voluntarily put yourself in an environment or situation that contains a known risk'. If you go to a hockey game and one of those galvanized rubber pucks flips high enough over the plexiglass and cracks you on the head forcing you to live a life where your mommey has to tie your shoelaces, well, that's what you get, in the eyes of the law.

Mandle and I spoke at great length with an attorney who specializes in this sort of thing. We didn't seek her out for consultation or anything, she just started chatting us up at the bar and the flood gates of information swung wide. She said she deals in a lot of cases where someone was hurt being a spectator, and there's little a 'victim' can do. She also said that in the case of someon getting hurt at a sports event (much like the hockey scenerio above), to squash any bad publicity the sport's arena will typically pay for the medical expenses as a show of good faith.

And, being that quail hunting isn't like duck hunting, the law would certainly swing in Cheney's corner. Why?? Because when you hunt for duck, you point upward, to the skies, and fire. When you quail hunt, the quails fly close to the earth, so the chances of a mishap are likely.

But, what's more, let's not piss on the guns for this. Come on, that's just political fence sitting.

BTW, I've got a quick little thing I learned tonight. While updating a Disney website, I saw a sentence that contained this: "princess's hair". And, I immediately pointed out that that had to be wrong. We debated for a bit in the office, and we all tried to find a grammar site that would prove or disprove the use of "'s" to make 'princess' singular possessive. Well, the rule is shaky. From what we found, some sites claimed that adding the "'s" was from Old English and was not proper in modern English. Others claimed it 'any time a word ends in s it should contain only an apostrophe and not a following s', but another one stated that within the past decade the "'s" has been added back to the singular possessive of 'princess' and only the plural possessive contains the single apostrophe. What?! Why didn't I receive that memo telling me what I was taught in school was WRONG!?!?! This is an OUTRAGE!

Any thoughts?

Miller Sturtevant said...

Yeah, from what I can tell, correct usage is now an ('s) to make a possessive out of nouns ending in s. Dennis's, Jesus's, Russell Banks's, and so on. Used to be you could just smack an ' on the end of a noun ending in s and that would do you fine, but it's not what's cool nowadays. I think a simple apostrophe will still keep you from being labeled a "grammar tard', but it's falling out of favor. I will of course defer to anyone who has documentation to the contrary. Shawn? Does Gretch the Grammarian have an opinion on this?

blankfist said...

"murder for freedom"

--Iron Maiden

Anonymous said...

Iron Maiden rules.

You're never incorrect with an added 's, as far as I know. I think it's one of those things like adding a comma before the "and" in a list - it's optional, but most folks say put the comma in. Perhaps more interesting is the tendancy in African American Vernacular to drop the apostrophe S regardless of the word ending. As in, "Heath pencil." I had a student who did that a lot in her papers and it's tough to broach because in her daily life it's an acceptable way to speak. On paper, it's different though which is why I always gave her an F. That and I'm horribly racist.

Oh, and Heath. The NHL instituted mandatory league-wide safety nettings (much like the nets that catch the football during a field goal attempt) at each end of the ice following the death of a young spectator at a Columbus Blue Jackets game. It's still possible to get hit by a puck, but happens much less often since the introduction of the nettings.