CARLSON: So was it irresponsible for the Vice President to fire a weapon after having a beer? After all, the man does take heart medication that, combined with alcohol, could make him a bit woozy. We bring in now former deputy assistant to the President, Brad Blakeman. He joins us live tonight from Washington. Brad, thanks for coming on.
BLAKEMAN: Pleasure Tucker.
CARLSON: I suspect you think a lot of this controversy over how the Vice President handled his press operations is overblown and silly.
BLAKEMAN: Absolutely.
CARLSON: Yeah, I completely agree with you. I think it's been an embarrassment to the press corps and I'm embarrassed to be a journalist when I see it. However, the question of whether the Vice President was drinking before he shot, even one beer, I think is significant because you're not supposed to do that.
BLAKEMAN: Well, that's not so. It's a situation where the Vice President admitted he had one beer at lunch, five hours prior to the incident. And as a matter of law, and as a matter of science, that one beer could not have had any impact on the Vice President one way or the other.
CARLSON: Well, I don't know we know it was five hours before the incident. I don't think in his interview today – unless you've spoken to him separately – I don't think he was that specific. But we don't – and of course because we don't have a blood alcohol reading from the Vice President, we don't know what exactly was in his blood – But we do know, that it is considered totally unacceptable, and I'm sure you know this and I can tell you if you don't, to drink before shooting. People just don't do it and they don't do it because it's a very dangerous sport and it gets more dangerous if you drink.
BLAKEMAN: It depends on when you ingested the drink. And if you ingested the drink five hours or four hours even before shooting – one beer. It cannot have a deteriorous effect on you as a matter of science. It's completely out of your science.
CARLSON: Huh, that's interesting. I don't think that's settled science. And I —
BLAKEMAN: I have it right here with me –
CARLSON: Let me just finish my sentence. I don't think that we know what medications the Vice President is on. I think we know that he is on some medications to respond to the coronary problems that he's had. And it's not clear what effect the mixture of beer with those medicines has, and I guess my question to you Brad, is why take the chance? The reason people don't drink before they hunt – and they're really uptight about it in most hunts. I mean they say, you can't drink, period, until you put the gun down for the rest of the day. And the reason they do that is why take the chance? Why did he take the chance? Why do this?
Full transcript at the link above.
Daily KOS researched Texas hunting records, just for perspective:
In Texas, over the last decade, only one hunter in 26,000 has been involved in a hunting accident.
In 2005, only one in 36,000 was involved in a hunting accident.
In fact, there were 1.1 million hunting licenses issued in Texas last year but only 30 reported accidents.
Pretty remarkable that Dick Cheney is in such select company. To read some of these sorry stories - of which Dick Cheney's is now one - click here (PDF). And if you do, you'll learn something even more amazing.
Cheney is probably just lucky that most of the media is treating this as a joke. I wonder at what point in the process the spin doctors in the White House started working that angle?
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 9
But savvy politicians have adapted to fast media since the 1960 election by using the media like a magician's toybox, full of indirection and dazzle, and no one sees where the wires are. What was once a tool of revelation has now become a shell-game.
So we have to teach people to be smarter about media, and citizen media such as blogs are one way to free media from the fetters of commercial interest.
The work we do here and other folks do on other sites is important, that way. Even when it isn't the bloggers who are shining the light, we give traditional media an excuse. "Look, boss, we might as well do it, or we're going to just get scooped by the bloggers."
When I was growing up, the sort of meta-media news (like Fox suppressing Cheney's drinking comment) weren't news. Now it's the important part of the news to impress upon people.
You don't have a free press that supports a free and open society unless the free press is also transparent.
But you know, no matter what else he does in his career, he'll never get past Jon Stewart calling him a d*ck to his face on the air. One of the greatest television moments ever.
great post shava. interesting note about the texas statistics - cheney doesn't have a proper license, so he won't actually be among those stats of accidents among licensed hunters.