This is too important to mess around with. So we go straight to the
official transcript of Scott McClellan’s press briefing on Monday. Yes, it’s a long excerpt, but bear with me.

And in terms of here in Washington, there was information that we were continuing to learn about throughout the course of that evening and into early Sunday morning. The initial report that we received was that there had been a hunting accident. We didn’t know who all was involved, but a member of his party was involved in that hunting accident. And then additional details continued to come in overnight.
[…]
Q Scott, there’s a report coming out of a Sheriff’s deputy there who said that he was prevented from interviewing the Vice President by the Secret Service. Do you know anything about that? And is that appropriate?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I don’t know anything about that. You ought to direct that to the Secret Service. My understanding was that Secret Service took the appropriate steps to inform law enforcement. But, again, check with Secret Service.

Q Scott, what was the input of the White House? What was your input, once you learned of this? Did you just turn it over to the Vice President’s Office? Did you know they were turning it over to a private citizen to inform people?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, in terms of my involvement, first of all, Saturday night I find out that there was a hunting accident — it was late Saturday night — of a member in his party. But I did not know who was involved in that hunting accident. It wasn’t until very early Sunday morning that I found out that the Vice President was involved in this accident. And, of course, in a position like mine, I was urging that that information be made available as quickly as possible and the Vice President’s Office was working to get that information out.

Q So as of Saturday night, you didn’t know, the White House did not know that Vice President Cheney was involved?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, there were details coming in throughout that night and into the morning. There was additional information coming in at 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m., and even after that.

Q But, again, Saturday night, you did not know the Vice President was involved, you just thought someone from his hunting party was —

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I, personally, was informed by the Situation Room that there had been a hunting accident, and that it was a member of the Vice President’s hunting party. But I didn’t have additional information other than that at this point. Obviously, I asked questions about — is he okay, and who was involved — and they didn’t have those facts at that point.

Q So Sunday morning you first learned that it was the Vice President?

MR. McCLELLAN: Early Sunday morning, that’s correct.
[…]
Q What time on Sunday morning did you learn that Vice President Dick Cheney was the shooter?
MR. McCLELLAN: It was early. I was woken up.
Q Do you have any — was it 6:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m.? Can you give me at least just some sort of sense of how early —
MR. McCLELLAN: It was probably in the 6:00 a.m. range or so. Usually I’m up at 5:00 a.m., but it was Sunday.
Q And who woke you up and told you?
MR. McCLELLAN: I’m sorry?
Q Who told you?
MR. McCLELLAN: I just had discussions with staff. I’ll leave it at that.
[…]
Q This doesn’t make any sense, though. This happens at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, and you’re saying that until the morning, the President of the United States —
MR. McCLELLAN: No, I didn’t say that. I said there was additional information coming in later that evening and into the morning hours of Sunday.
Q You’ve got to clarify this timeline, Scott; it just doesn’t make any sense.
Q When did the President know that the Vice President was the shooter? What time?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, there was additional information coming in that night. And the details continued to come in throughout the morning, into the Sunday morning time period.
Q The Vice President did not call the President to tell him he was the shooter?
MR. McCLELLAN: Suzanne, go ahead. (Interjection: McClellan didn’t respond to the previous question.)

McClellan refused to be pinned down to specific times, but it’s clear that for a long time after it happened the White House and the President didn’t even know anything had happened, and then for a significant further period of time they had no idea that Cheney was involved in the shooting. Or perhaps I better say, it’s clear that that’s the story McClellan was trying to put out on Monday. (Please stand by for Version 2.0. The release date has not yet been officially announced, but we do know that Scottie has been hard at work on it ever since the somewhat problematic launch of Version 1.0. We may see version 1.1, and even 1.2, in the next few days, as a temporary fix. But there’s bound to be a 2.0 soon.)

Suppose we believe Scottie’s labored version (just for the sake of argument). Bear with me while I try to construct a plausible script to fit those alleged facts.

Cheney shoots Whittington in the face at 5:30 pm.

Cheney’s Friends and Family ambulance-on-call is summoned right away. It whisks off Whittington, and he is eventually conveyed by helicopter to the hospital in Corpus Christi.

Everyone else just hangs out at the ranch, totally bummed out. Someone asks: “Shall we, like, call the White House?” Someone answers (we won’t be irresponsible enough to speculate who this might be) either “No!” or “Go fuck yourself!” The conversation dies out quickly.

After a good long while, someone else asks warily: “Shouldn’t we tell the press? Maybe?” Before a low growl changes into words, the same voice goes: “Okay, okay, I’m going.”

At some point late on Saturday night, somehow an operational decision is made to break radio silence, and the White House is informed, but only that there was a hunting accident. The White House is not informed that Cheney was even involved, let alone that he was the shooter.

Now which version do you like best at this point?
A) Whoever received this information in the White House didn’t think to ask who was shot and by whom.
B) They asked and weren’t answered (Hmmm, asked and not answered? Could that have been McClellan himself calling from the ranch? Could they have flown him down? Or just beamed Scotty there?).
C) The White House was informed by leaving a voicemail message.

Then, throughout the night information trickles in slowly to the White House. I have a hard time figuring out how you could dribble out the information over several hours, but maybe it went something like this. Half an hour after the first call, comes a second one. All calls will have to be voicemail messages, of course, which is why the White House can never get anything cleared up. So this second call says: “The shooter’s first name has an odd number of letters, and the victim’s first name has an even number of letters. (Pause) Or is it the other way around?” 45 minutes later: “No, it was the other way round, actually.” Maybe another 30 minutes go by, then: “You know, they’ll be making some lawyer jokes tomorrow, that’s for sure.” An hour later: “Okay, we can now confirm that one of the first names is Harry. Also, the other one is neither Mary or Jane.” (By now, of course, the NSA has this flagged as an extremely suspicious series of calls, and is listening in with cheerful disregard for the fact that this is a domestic-domestic call.) Then 20 minutes go by before: “Sorry! Neither Mary nor Jane! And no transvestites were involved in any way either.” (The NSA is now panting with the spy version of lust.) Next installment: “Boy, was he peppered good!” And so it goes through the night. Some time in the early morning it eventually becomes clear that Cheney has shot Harry Whittington in the face.

Yeah, sure. It could certainly have happened like that, right?

So what was really going on? Well, your guess is as good as mine, but the more you think about what McClellan said, the less sense it makes. So why don’t we do it this way? I’ll make a guess, then you make a guess, and we’ll keep taking it in turns till we run out of ideas, okay?

I’ll go first. (Strokes her chin, and thinks aloud.) If they’re lying, maybe they’re all lying? Maybe Scottie and the White House weren’t just at the receiving end of lies. So let’s not assume the White House wasn’t told the whole truth right away. Now, what do we know for a fact? One, the press wasn’t informed till Sunday morning. Two, they didn’t inform the national press, just the docile local paper which seems to eat out of Katharine Armstrong’s hands and worship her family to boot. Pretty sobering. That’s all we know for sure! Just to simplify things, let’s go ahead and stipulate that Cheney did in fact shoot Whittington at 5:30 pm as claimed. So then the question is: what possible reasons could there be for not informing the press right away, and for keeping the national press firmly out of it?

I’ll start with the obvious one: Cheney was shooting under the influence. (Katharine Armstrong has said that no one was drinking before the shooting, but there’s no reason why she couldn’t be lying too. And if someone who was present at the ranch has to tell this lie, who better than a private citizen, especially a woman who might easily have got flustered by the shooting and the blood?) And then after he shot Whittington, Cheney broke down and blubbered like a baby for several hours. There was no question of letting anyone else on the scene till the blood alcohol level became vanishingly small, and expert makeup had neutralized all signs of the crying jag. McClellan’s pathetic “we learnt things piecemeal through the night” was just the best story they were able to come up with to “explain” the delay. Okay, your turn now!

You don’t say! Wow! That would never have occurred to me. Okay, my second try. Whittington didn’t just grin manfully, and say “I’ll be just fine, don’t worry about it!” He was plain hopping mad. “I’ll sue your dirty rotten evil heartless mean malicious ass, you cocky arrogant asshole bastard fool!” There was only one way to handle it. Sedate the old man right away, bundle him off to the hospital, keep him under wraps till he had cooled down enough. Once he did, then bribe, bully, browbeat or blackmail him into agreeing to wear “I’ll be just fine, don’t worry about it!” as his public face. Then mop your brow, and break the news. But keep the press away from Cheney as long as possible.

No shit? Okay, here goes, third try! Right after the shooting, Cheney went into a catatonic state of denial. He kept repeating two things over and over again, and wouldn’t respond to anything said to him. One was “Like hell I shot someone, it was the fucking ambassador!” The second was “Boy, she has big tits, doesn’t she?” (He was believed to be referring not to the ambassador or his hostess, but some unknown third party.) They couldn’t break the news till his doctors brought him out of it, and judged that he wasn’t likely to relapse even under press questioning. And to stay on the safe side, they kept the press away from Cheney as long as possible.

Last and final one from me, so let me make it a doozy. They couldn’t break the news till they first got hold of the President, and they couldn’t get hold of the President because he was off somewhere banging a floozy. He does that every so often, you know. Just slips away without even a phone, and without his Secret Service detail. And then he shows up only when he shows up. That night he rolled in at 2:30 am. Couldn’t break the news then, so they had to wait till morning. This is also why McClellan and Andy Card and Karl Rove were up most of the night, and looking haggard Monday morning. That’s how they thought of concocting that “we learnt things piecemeal through the night” bullshit. Naah, this one’s a little weak, I think. Doesn’t explain why they worked so hard to keep the national press away from the ranch.

Let’s cancel that one, I’ll try again. Cheney, finally overcome by the guilt of all his evil actions over the last 5 years, suddenly decided to do the honorable thing and blow his brains out. But he chickened out at the very last moment, and turned his gun away just as he was squeezing the trigger. Whittington was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, poor sod. They told Bush everything right away. This left Bush with a very difficult decision: cut Cheney loose and leave him twisting in the wind, or cover up everything and go public with the official version only when everything was safely under wraps. He did so want to do the honorable thing, but he couldn’t decide which alternative was more honorable. He finally just went to bed, saying “I’ll sleep on it.” McClellan, Card and Rove were up all night, getting all prepped up to hit the ground running in the morning, and roll out whichever scenario the President selected. That’s why they looked so haggard in the morning. And that’s what made them cook up that “we learnt things piecemeal through the night” nonsense.

Footnotes:
1) Yes, I do realize that Scottie’s briefing performance constitutes one massive extended whopper, and this one is bigger and badder than “we don’t know how Abramoff even got onto the White House grounds”, so I take back my previous invitation. Please don’t jam our server with comments to this effect.

2) At some point yesterday, the White House decided to clarify the question that Scottie worked so strenuously to duck throughout the briefing. They appended the following clarification to the official transcript of the briefing:

Response to a Question from the Briefing

Q So when did the President definitively know that the Vice President had shot somebody?

A Chief of Staff Andy Card called the President around 7:30pm EST to inform him that there was a hunting accident. He did not know the Vice President was involved at that time. Subsequent to the call, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove spoke with Mrs. Armstrong. He then called the President shortly before 8:00pm EST to update him and let him know the Vice President had accidentally shot Mr. Whittington.

Carefully note the following:

They are implicitly saying that Cheney never called Bush himself, nor did Bush call to speak to Cheney on Saturday night after receiving the news. Sound plausible to you?

It is not known when the first post-shooting conversation between Bush and Cheney actually occurred. What is known is that they had a private lunch together on Sunday.

Presumably Card didn’t speak to Cheney, because if he had, he would have known at the very least that Cheney was involved, and probably that he was the shooter. Karl Rove, who was the one to get and pass on to the President first-hand information from the scene, didn’t speak to Cheney either! Sound plausible to you?

Katharine Armstrong was not just the one who informed the press on Sunday morning, she was also the one who informed the President Saturday night (via Rove). Sound plausible to you?

Either they are all telling the truth (in which case someone went to extraordinary lengths to make sure that neither Bush nor Card nor Rove spoke to Cheney Saturday night; WHY?) or one or more of them did speak to Cheney Saturday night, and some pretty extraordinary circumstances resulted in a decision to lie about it. Whichever way you look at it, extraordinary seems to trump plausible at every turn.

3) The Washington Post confirms that a Sheriff’s deputy was prevented from interviewing Cheney on Saturday:

Local law enforcement officials did not interview Cheney until Sunday morning, about 14 hours after the shooting, in an agreement worked out between the Secret Service and Kenedy County Sheriff Ramon Salinas III. Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren said at least one deputy was turned away shortly after the shooting because security personnel at the ranch were not aware of the agreement between the sheriff and the Secret Service.

Let’s see here:

The deputy showed up at the ranch shortly after the shooting, and by that time an agreement had already been worked out between the Secret Service and the Sheriff’s office about when Cheney would be interviewed.

The security personnel at Katharine Armstrong’s ranch, all on their own and without help from the Secret Service, can just turn away a Sheriff’s deputy who has arrived to investigate a shooting? Awesome!

As per the agreement worked out between the Secret Service and the Sheriff’s office, Cheney was interviewed only on Sunday morning?

Since the Sheriff’s office takes orders from the security personnel at Katharine Armstrong’s ranch, they would obviously have no problem taking orders from the Secret Service. And right after the shooting, the Secret Service told the Sheriff’s office that they couldn’t interview Cheney till Sunday morning? (If not, when the Sheriff’s deputy got back to the Sheriff’s office on Saturday evening, he would presumably have been told: “Go back, you clown, and tell those security personnel that we have an agreement with the Secret Service!”)

A pattern here, huh? Everyone concerned seems to have gone to extraordinary lengths to keep Cheney under wraps till Sunday morning. And then even on Sunday morning, he was carefully exposed only to the docile local paper, and the docile local Sheriff’s office. Someone obviously sent out an order: “Don’t worry about how bad it looks, just DO it!”

This really doesn’t seem quite so funny any more, does it?

I strongly urge you to read the full briefing transcript for yourself. My excerpts don’t do much justice to the massive stonewalling performance McClellan put on from beginning to end. (They might have captured the evasions maybe, but not the dead stonewalling.)