The 18 hour Gap

The late night comics will have a hey day with Cheney's hunting incident. Accidents happen, and while we would love to speculate how the Blogosphere, or even the main stream media, would have reacted if it were a high ranking Dem involved, especially Kerry, I'll leave that for their writers to sort out.

What is interesting to me, is 18 hours passed before news got out. In fact, there is speculation the Administration wanted no one to find out:

While E&P was first to raise questions about the delay Sunday afternoon, Frank James, reporter in the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau, put his own spin on it later in the day, asking, "How is it that Vice President Cheney can shoot a man, albeit accidentally, on Saturday during a hunting trip and the American public not be informed of it until today?"

Indeed, others raised questions as well. "There was no immediate reason given as to why the incident wasn't reported until Sunday," the Dallas Morning News observed. "The sheriff's office in Kenedy County did not respond to phone calls Sunday."

The president, who was at the White House over the weekend, was informed about the incident in Texas after it happened Saturday by Chief of Staff Andrew Card and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and was updated on Sunday, press secretary Scott McClellan said.

But neither the White House nor the vice president's staff announced the shooting. The Washington Post reported late Sunday that Cheney's office did not make a public announcement.

Asked by The New York Times why it did not make the news known, Cheney spokeswoman McBride said, "We deferred to the Armstrongs regarding what had taken place at their ranch."

Armstrong said later, according to The Associated Press, that everyone at the ranch was so "focused" on Whittington's health Saturday that it wasn't until Sunday she called the Caller-Times to report the accident.

I know, picking nits, but if it wasn't for the pattern of deception by this administration, it wouldn't bother me at all!

Jeff has more.

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