Kick Up A Stink, Get Some Answers
Big whopping kudos to readers who spotted the MSNBC scrub of Katharine Armstrong's "beer" comments yesterday, and also to everyone who contacted MSNBC about it. I have no doubt that the only reason Dick admitted to drinking a beer before shooting an old man in the face came because of that particular dust-up; he's not one particularly given to candor.
And while MSNBC is not explaining why they pulled the quote, it is now restored in a somewhat altered fashion:
At a news conference Wednesday outside Whittington's hospital in Corpus Christi, reporters asked hospital officials whether Whittington's blood-alcohol level had been tested. The officials responded with a "no comment."So not only was Dick drinking before shooting, he tried to mislead MSNBC about it, showing the same commitment to truth he does every time he pays homage to Father Tim and re-asserts the connection between Osama Bin Laden and Sadaam Hussein.
In a recorded, on-the-record phone call with NBC News, Armstrong said that beer may have been available at lunch that day. "If someone wants to help themselves to a beer," she said, "they may, but I did not see anyone do that," Armstrong says. She says she was not sure if there were beers in the coolers but wasn't ready to rule it out: "There may be a beer or two in there, but remember not everyone in the party was shooting," she told NBC News.
Armstrong added that she did not believe that Cheney or anyone else shooting in the hunting party had alcohol on Saturday before the hunting accident.
NBC News called the vice president's office for comment four times Tuesday and Wednesday and asked whether the vice president or anyone in the hunting party had consumed any alcohol on Saturday prior to the accident. In an e-mail statement Wednesday to NBC News, the vice president's press secretary referred NBC News to the Kenedy County Sheriff's Department report on the incident. Later in the day on Fox News, Brit Hume stated that Cheney told him during a taped interview that he had had "a beer at lunch" before the hunting incident.
For those of you with medical backgrounds, here is a medical site supplied by Glenn Greenwald which speculates about the medications a man of Dick's age is likely to be taking after four heart attacks. Any of this conflict with alchohol?
(graphic by Anna G.)
posted by Jane Hamsher @ 2/15/2006 02:07:00 PM
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