I must disagree with my fellow conservatives on this one. Dick Cheney was dead wrong, and this event bears all the marks of a coverup.
First: that line initially offered by Gertie Armstrong about Harry Whittington “not announcing himself” as he rejoined the group after retrieving his downed quail is hogwash. From all evidence I’ve been able to research (and the info is hardly available), Cheney was inexcusable to have followed that bird and swung around to where he could hit a fellow hunter. I’ve hunted quail myself, and that’s something you just don’t do. The initial story was “damage control.”
Next, there are conflicting reports about alcohol consumption. At first, there was no alcohol that day, only Dr. Pepper. Then the story changed to one beer at lunch. To cover the inconsistency, the hostess then said there might have been some beer, as if she didn’t know. And there may have been other versions of this story in addition to these.
Then there is the unwillingness of the sherriff’s department to report what they knew and when they knew it. They claimed that they were turned away by the Secret Service when they arrived to question Cheney. But the SS claims differently. Now the sherriff’s office won’t talk.
What are the real facts? That’s the problem: we can’t learn them because the administration is stonewalling and feeding us one line of inconsistent bull after another. I dare speculate that Cheney’s blood alcohol level was such that he didn’t want to interact with anyone for a few hours. He didn’t go to the hospital with his victim and apparently he was unavailable to the police until the next morning.