Still, this is AP. Being torn off the wires all across the country. So, as Jane says, the story isn’t dying, and whatever weakens our enemies is good; we can’t always choose. (Another way of saying this is that “serious” is defined operationally; policy statements and checklists are all very well, but if they don’t move the pointer our way, they’re pointless.)

The AP story points to discrepancies in the following areas, and, interestingly, the list, though quite long, heavily sanitized:

1. BLAME: First they said Whittington was to blame, then they didn’t. Then Whittington took the blame. (Alert reader Steve Talbot wonders why?)
2. DRINKING: “Although there is no evidence that beer impaired Cheney’s judgment, initial denials that he had consumed alcohol were wrong.”
3. LICENSE: “Cheney did not have all his hunting papers in order, as suggested by the White House and initially stated by Texas authorities.”{
4. VICTIM’S CONDITION: “Initial reports had him treated at the scene, then taken by ambulance to the hospital, where in no time he was cracking jokes with the nurses. It turned out that after being taken to the emergency room of a local, small hospital, he was flown by helicopter to the intensive care unit of the larger hospital in Corpus Christi.”
5. DISCLOSURE: “The accident raised questions about the flow of information into and out of the White House communications apparatus.” [I love that AP humor, don’t you? It’s dry; very, very dry.
6. TELLING WASHINGTON: “However, McClellan said he didn’t personally know Cheney was the shooter until the next morning, about 6 a.m. EST Sunday, when he was awakened with the news.”

As I said, pretty sanitized. Because we’re not mentioning:

1. Why is Katherine Armstrong treated as a credible witness? By her own adminission, she was a hundred yards away, and first thought people were running toward Cheney because he’d had a heart attack. Clearly, she saw nothing. Yet her “eyewitness account,” complete with colorful language like “peppered pretty good,” is treated as credible. Why?

2. Why have the following witnesses not been interviewed? The hunting guides, the Secret Service, and Rita Cosby.

3. Why was Whittington’s interview not recorded? The sherriff of the Armstrong’s fiefdom, Kenedy County, said they didn’t record a victim interview because Whittington’s voice was “raspy.” Is that a usual typical policy in police investigations?

4. Why was Whittington not treated by his own family doctor and medical team? He’s a rich man, and he could have afforded it.

5. Was Whittington really retrieving his own birds? I’m no expert in hunting, but don’t the dogs usually do that?

6. Why was Cheney shooting down, not up? Pheasants fly up into the air, the hunter tracks them in flight, and fires. Yet Cheney says he was shooting downward (Whittington was in some sort of gully (transcript)) when he hit Whittington. Why?