Cheney's history of bad decisions, drunken and otherwise

There is an excellent story at the Nation (also picked up by Yahoo) regarding the possibility that alcohol was consumed before the shooting, the history of the consequences of Cheney's drinking (leaving Yale, two drunk driving arrests), and the appearance that the Secret Service prevented the local sheriff's office from assessing Cheney's condition at the time of the shooting.

In other news (from the New York Times):

Ari Fleischer, [former white house press secretary], said Tuesday that he suspected the reason Mr. Cheney failed to say anything publicly was because he viewed the hunting trip and the accident as part of his private life, not his public one.

Later,

White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, suggested he was wearing an orange tie to avoid a stray shot from Vice President Dick Cheney

but unfortunately, possibly due to reasons Fleischer describes above, the Cheney staff hadn't told McClellan that Whittington, the victim of the shooting

was about to undergo a medical procedure on his heart because his injuries were more serious than earlier believed.

The victim also suffered a mild heart attack and was moved back into the ICU. So McClellan and the White House staff looked like insensitive morons. They would have tried to avoid that appearance if they had the information about Whittington's condition. Presumable they would have had that info if Cheney didn't act like he ran his own private country.

I might assume from an honorable person that something called an accident was an accident, even if carelessness and bad judgment contributed. However, I call this a shooting and not an accident. This is the man who lied to me, Congress and the country about the reasons for going to war. At the time I thought it was reasonable that there was intelligence that couldn't be shared with the public. Now, I do not accept any assertions of his for which the evidence is not fully disclosed and verified.