VP Accident Tale Filled With Discrepancies - Yahoo! News: " By CALVIN WOODWARD and NANCY BENAC, Associated Press | Writers Sat Feb 18, 3:52 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney said he didn't immediately disclose his hunting accident because he wanted the confusing details to come out right. Instead, authorized accounts came out slowly — and often still wrong.
The result: a week of shifting blame, belatedly acknowledged beer consumption (not "zero" drinking after all) and evolving discrepancies in how the shooting happened, its aftermath and the way it was told to the nation.
"There's a reason they call this crisis management," said corporate damage-control specialist Eric Dezenhall, "and that's because it's a mess."
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BLAME
In the first days after the vice president wounded attorney Harry Whittington while shooting at quail last Saturday in Texas, blame was placed on the victim for not announcing his presence to fellow hunter Cheney.
"The vice president did everything right," Katharine Armstrong, the ranch owner approved by Cheney to disclose the accident, said Monday. ...
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DRINKING
Although there is no evidence that beer impaired Cheney's judgment, initial denials that he had consumed alcohol were wrong.
"No one was drinking," Armstrong said at the outset. "No, zero, zippo." ...
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VICTIM'S CONDITION
In the rush to assure everyone Whittington was "just fine," some important details were left out.
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. ...
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LICENSE
Cheney did not have all his hunting papers in order, as suggested by the White House and initially stated by Texas authorities. ...
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DISCLOSURE
The accident raised questions about the flow of information into and out of the White House communications apparatus.
Asked why no one released news of the shooting on Saturday night, McClellan said "the vice president's office was working to make sure information got out" but that details were slow to reach Washington that evening.
Armstrong, for her part, said no one at the ranch even discussed releasing the news on Saturday. ...
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TELLING WASHINGTON
McClellan said
President Bush was told shortly before 8 p.m. EST Saturday that Cheney had shot Whittington, less than half an hour after Bush first heard there had a been an accident of some sort involving Cheney's hunting party. Confirmation that Cheney was the shooter was obtained when deputy chief of staff Karl Rove called Armstrong, McClellan said.
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. ...
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