Cheney’s mishap with the lobbyist

I’ve really been trying to avoid going to much into this “episode”. I mean, even the VP can’t be perfect, right? And it was an accident. So I said my two-cents and moved on. It’s not really an issue we should be focusing on right now, in my opinion. I’m way more concerned with the NSA and other real scandals. But I ran into something interesting over at Firedoglake. It seems our friend, Katharine Armstrong admitted that “there may have been a beer or two” at their little hunting party. A couple of alcoholic old men get together to drink some Wild Turkey to shoot a little quail and one of them gets shot. I’m shocked. No wonder Cheney didn’t speak to the local police until the next day. It takes one hour for each ounce of hard liquor (or 12 oz. can of beer or 4 oz. glass of wine) to leave your system (for an average size male). If it took 14 hours for Cheney to speak to the authorities does that mean that he had 15 beers/shots/glasses of wine?

Update: Dan Abrams is on MSNBC giving Cheney a pass, saying that “The Vice President didn’t do anything wrong” and finding nothing irregular about the fact that he was not interviewed by law enforcement officials for 15 hours after the incident. Is Abrams the amazing Kreskin or something? How would he, or anyone, know that “the Vice President didn’t do anything wrong” — especially since Armstrong is now backtracking on her story:

“There may be a beer or two in there,” she said, ‘but remember not everyone in the party was shooting.’”

These are the questions you should be asking, Dan.

Update II: The beer quote seems to now be scrubbed from the MSNBC site, though you can still see it cached in the Google abstract.

I thought that was interesting, so I went hunting (it takes me a long time because of my wifely/motherly duties *sigh*). I found the quote back on MSNBC. It’s been put back (I did, however, see where it’s absence was noted by others).

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.

Well, there you have it then. Somebody wasn’t listening when Karl Rove told her to keep her damned yap shut.

But that’s really not the important part (I know, it’s amazing). The really important part was why Dick Cheney was shooting on Ms. Armstrong’s ranch. Seems that she’s a paid lobbyist.

Katharine Armstrong, whose family owns the ranch where Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a hunting partner, is a registered lobbyist who has been paid to lobby the White House, according to records.

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. Vice President Dick Cheney is being entertained to free and easy booze bird shooting by a lobbyist. Something smells a little Abramoffish, methinks. An innocent weekend of whacking off little fowl is one thing, but a weekend of leisure provided by a lobbyist? Well, now, that’s a bird of a different feather (I know, that’s corny, but I couldn’t resist).

It seems, however, that Ms. Armstrong is afflicted with the same brain fog[1]that afflicts me. She can’t quite remember if she lobbied the vice president herself. Nor can she remember if she lobbied his puppet, GWB.

Armstrong told NBC News in a telephone interview that she has never directly lobbied Cheney as far as she remembers.

“Never!” she said. And she says she does not remember directly lobbying the president himself either.

I honestly think that Ms. Armstrong should get herself to the doctor. That memory problem sounds very serious.

Armstrong was paid $160,000 in 2004 by the powerful legal firm Baker Botts to lobby the White House, according to records she filed with the U.S. Senate as required by lobbying disclosure rules. The records indicate she was paid the money after she “communicated with the White House on behalf of Baker Botts clients.”

Won’t reveal client’s name
In a phone interview, she told NBC News that in return for the money in one case, she set up a meeting at the White House for a Baker Botts client, although she said she felt she could not release the client’s name.

“A meeting for doing something with one of their clients,” she said, describing the event. “I’m not at liberty to say which.” She says she cannot remember which White House official the meeting was with. She also said that during the inauguration proceedings, she got Karl Rove to speak at a Baker Botts function. “I got them Karl Rove,” she said.

I think it’s too late for her to forget whom it was that she was lobbying. She’s already done quite a bit of damage by spilling the beans about the alcohol. She’s dead in the water as far as the White House is concerned. Unfortunately, there probably will be no investigation into this either. Not so much the shooting (we all know that Cheney is innocent even when he’s not) but as to what benefits the VP was reaping on Ms. Armstrong’s ranch and what exactly she was lobbying him for. This, I’m sure, will go away with neither party in Washington giving it much thought.

I am unclear on one thing though. Is it legal to shoot friends while drunk in Texas? Well, no matter. If it’s not I’m sure that someone will introduce a bill to make it retroactively legal (but only for the VP- sorry little Mexican guy).

^{[1]My (as yet undiagnosed) illness causes me to have what I call “brain fogs”. It’s basically when my brain function goes down to just above auto-pilot. I can’t form sentences (either orally or written) and I certainly can’t have a conversation with anyone. Also, during a fog (which lasts from a couple of hours to a couple of days) my short term memory is incredibly impaired.}

Related posts:

1. Boehner Rents Apartment Owned by Lobbyist in D.C.