Cheney and Chappaquiddick

I really didn't want to post on this topic, but I have seen so many people calling the hunting accident Cheney's Chappaquiddick that I thought a couple of points needed to be brought up.

R.J. Eskow raises these similarities at the Huffington Post:

1. Someone with a documented history of drinking problems causes a serious accident, and then avoids the authorities for a period of time - one that happens to be long enough to get the alcohol out of his system.

Avoids the authorities? According to the report from the Kenedy County Sheriff's Office, the Sheriff felt there was no need to go out to the ranch until the next morning.

Also, witnesses in Cheney's case recall him having one beer at lunch, more than five hours prior to the estimated time of the accident. Witnesses questioned for the Chappaquidick case attribute at least eight drinks consumed by Kennedy. The lush had been drinking all day.

2. The first stories of the accident are confusing and self-contradictory. (In this case, since Cheney didn't speak himself, the most glaring inconsistencies are Armstrong's. Specifically, she - and now Cheney - describe her as an eyewitness, although she told the Associated Press she thought at first Cheney had suffered a heart attack. That would mean she never saw the shooting.)

When are the first stories of any accident not confusing and self-contradictory? I have no idea why any significance should attach to that. Maybe Katharine Armstrong's affidavit will better clarify what she saw, but to see that somebody had been shot and to think that somebody else had a heart attack are not mutually exclusive propositions. It certainly does not mean that she never saw the shooting.

3. A powerful figure holds himself out as being above the law, and - at least for a time - appears to get away with it.

I dont know when Cheney held "himself out as being above the law". There is nothing in the aformentioned Sheriff's report that gave any indication that the Sheriff or Captain Kirk [sic] believed that Cheney acted improperly.

4. When the powerful person finally speaks, allegedly to 'come clean,' there are still inconsistencies and glaring contradictions in his story

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He doesn't point out these "inconsistencies and glaring contradictions" so they won't be addressed here.

Mr. Jeskow, the reason conservatives have taken umbrage at the comparison between the hunting accident and Chappaquiddick is because they are so radically disparate. Indications are that Mary Jo Kopechne died not from drowning but from asphyxiation. The diver who discovered her speculated that there could have been as much as hours worth of air in the car and said she was too bouyant to be full of water as a drowning victim would have been. So, Mr. Jeskow, if after having shot Harry Whittington, the Vice President merely walked away, let the man bleed to death, made 17 calls to his spin doctors, and reported the incident to the authorities some 8 or 9 hours later, your comparison would make a great deal of sense. But since it didn't, please don't make yourself look so foolish.