OK, there's been a lot of discussion on Cheney's hunting accident last weekend, including really silly stuff like the guy Cheney shot saying that he feels sorry for everything that Cheney has had to go through in the past week.
But the REAL conspiracy theorists are connecting the dots saying that there's something fishy about Cheney drinking that day. Consider:
1. Cheney had a beer at lunch, which some hunting enthusiasts and some conservative pundits have said is completely unheard of, even 4-5 hours before going hunting. They also haven't been specific about what time "lunch" was.
2. And especially for a guy on heart medication -- why was he drinking at all?
3. Tests suggest that Whittington was shot at a range of 15-18 feet, not 90 feet as listed in the official accident report.
3. After the accident, Cheney's security detail arranged for the local police to do their investigation the next day, and kept it out of the press until the next day. They even turned away a police officer who showed up right away. That would have given any alcohol in Cheney's system time to metabolize.
4. Cheney had a cocktail after the accident, which would have provided plausible cover for alcohol already in his system, or its side effects.
As much as I would like to believe that there's a cover-up here, this all seems pretty circumstantial. And I would love to hear from hunters about the notion that it's unheard of to drink at all the day of a hunt, even hours before. I know that's a hard-and-fast rule for pilots; I just don't know what the practice is for hunters. It would seem to make sense to me, especially for so-called "very safe" hunters as Cheney is supposed to be.
10:07:42 AM 
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