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HUNTING TRUTHS – The Trouble with Harry
By Michael Hammerschlag (about the author) Page 2 of 4 page(s)
Kenedy County Sheriff Ramon Salinas III cleared Cheney almost instantly, before any proper investigation, and failed to interview the shooter in time to see if he was drunk or request a breathalizer test. Instead of investigating personally, he accepted hearsay statements from the former Sheriff Ramiro Medellin (a ranch hand living at the Armstrong ranch with brother Geraldo Medellin), and waited till morning to send his deputy, despite a prompting call by the Secret Service that evening. "We've known these people for years. They are honest and wouldn't call us, telling us a lie," Salinas said.
Deputy Gilberto San Miguel Jr. didn't interrogate 4 of the witnesses, waiting 4 days before requesting affadavits from them, which were provided by Friday- 6 days after accident (Cheney and Whittington never provided one). He failed to tape Whittington's statement Monday because "his voice was raspy," then allowed himself to be ushered out early by a nurse. The report doesn't nail down location, position, and direction of travel, making amorphous statements like "to the west of me" meaningless, because of the lack of reference. Whether Secret Service agents obscured Cheney's vision or their very existence, isn't mentioned except by Hubert.
The sheriff was admittedly “overwhelmed” at the media hurricane that engulfed him. “We made all the requests for all the documents, but there's nothing,” said the Caller-Times Nancy Martinez, “there's no 911 tapes, radio transmissions, faxes, e-mails, correspondence between Secret Service” because Salinas said 'they called me at home'... You go after the paper trail, and there's no paper here. The way they handle it..is the way small communities do it, which is unheard of to the MSM. It's unheard of to us.”
The sheriff claimed he didn't have to worry because it was an accident, but any accidental shooting is negligent by definition. The question of how negligent may never be answered because of a botched investigation and consumate lack of media interest. One sobering realization; with Cheney's omnipresent Secret Service detail, if Harry had shot Dick, he would have likely been riddled with far more than a load of birdshot.
The media have been chillingly pliant: MSNBC purged Armstrong's comments about “may have been beer” on their website until Cheney verified it in his Fox talk, conforming their facts to imperial utterances. And the story about the shotgun test was scrubbed off the Cheney archive page of the Times-Caller website, and their video of it cropped to show only the upper chest area and face of the test target, where Whittington was actually hit, with Gongora helpfully adding that it was hit by 200 pellets (but on an 5-8 times bigger area!). Really, 200, exactly, just like Whittington?
That must be that “accuracy” that the Vice President was looking for in delaying the story.
Michael Hammerschlag's commentary and articles (HAMMERNEWS.com) have appeared in the Seattle Times, Providence Journal, Columbia Journalism Review, Hawaii Advertiser, Capital Times, MediaChannel; and Moscow News, Tribune, Times, and Guardian. He broke the first comprehensive story on media mistakes in the 2000 election, and spent 2 years in Russia as the empire collapsed, and has covered Presidential campaigns.
REFERENCES for HUNTING TRUTH The Trouble with Harry
HAMMERNEWS Version - http://hammernews.com/huntingtruths.htm
SHERIFF's REPORT - http://hammernews.com/cheneyhunt-sheriffreport.pdf
PARKS-WILDLIFE ACCIDENT REPORT - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/15/ar2006021502005_pf.html
CHENEY FOX INTERVIEW - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/15/ar2006021502005_pf.html
WITNESS STATEMENTS - http://smokinggun.com/
1. Dershowitz- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/dick-cheneys-delay_b_15715.html
2. Cheney drunk?- http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_8184.shtml
http://HAMMERNEWS.com
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