Cheney hunting accident brings out conspiracy theories

WorldNetDaily: Was vice president sending 'Godfather'-style message? :

"A North Carolina columnist claimed today Dick Cheney's shooting of friend Harry Whittington was not an accident, but was meant to be a message to his former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, not to testify against the vice president in the Valerie Plame leak investigation."

Barry Saunders of the News & Obsaerver in Raleigh may be heading off the deep end, but consider the hue and cry in the MSM about a cover up based on the fact that Dick Cheney's staff and the White House press office did not announce the occurrence of the incident before the victim was packed off to the hospital.

The better question, one we are not likely to hear asked, let alone answered, is why the incident was not immediately noticed and reported on by a crowd of press with police scanners and long lens cameras hanging about the Armstrong ranch.

Another question interests me, although I'll wager hardly anyone else will care to ask it. Why is it the duty of government employees to report on the private, non-official acts of public officials? It really steams me that people who are paid by my taxes to report on the activities of the government are used to "spin" the story of what the Veep (or the Prez, for that matter) do when not acting in an official capacity.

I hope I will be forgiven for pointing out that the MSM seems to be treating the apparent accidental shooting in Texas with a great deal more healthy skepticism than they displayed with regard to the death of Vince Foster. Remember the discrepancies in the timeline then - for example, the phone calls from the White House to friends in Arkansas announcing that Foster has been found dead in his car at the White House hours before the "official" discovery of the corpse in a Virginia park? Little inconvenient facts like that were largely ignored by the US press and came to light through the investigative journalism of representatives of the foreign press.

All this is not to say that there are not some puzzling, perhaps even troubling, aspects to the reporting of this incident.

For example, there are reports that private security guards turned away from the Armstrong ranch local police responding to the ambulance call. In my time as an ambulance driver in Pennsylvania, it was routine to dispatch police as well in cases like this. And gunshot injuries, being subject to mandatory reporting by medical personnel, are routinely treated as possible crimes until investigation indicates some other explanation.

Another thing I find odd is that, although there has been mention of the the fact that Cheney lacked an upland bird endorsement on his Texas hunting license (a fact of no significance to the accident), I have seen no mention of any investigation by the game commission which would be routine in most jurisdictions, though I am not familiar with procedures in Texas.

More on this as the story develops.