What shoebombers?

I'm surprised that last week's fake shoebomer story expired after only one 24-hour news cycle in the old media (TV, newspaper) and then lasted for about two more days in the blogosphere where it was ridiculed over and over. I would have thought that the old media would keep this freakshow alive for a few more days to keep everybody scared.

The Cheney attempted murder story is getting a lot more play than I thought it would. I figured this story would go away after a day or so since it's not really news and no one seems to care about it. It looks like the more attention it gets, the weirder the story gets. This is probably a side effect of the reflexive instinct of this criminal administration to lie about EVERYTHING.

From jesus' General:

The police report says that Whittington was 30 yards away when Dick shot him. It also notes that the elderly gentleman was hit in the face, chest and neck. Agents of the Ministry of Truth characterize the shooting as a "peppering." Taken all together, these things would suggest that the shot was fairly well dispersed.

Unfortunately, a more detailed look at the facts reveals something else. Our Deputy Leader was using 28 gauge shotgun shells loaded with 3/4 oz of #7-1/2 shot. That particular load carries approximately 262 BBs. The doctor caring for the wounded man said that he removed about 200 BBs. That means about 4/5ths of the shot in the load struck the man in an area no larger than about 18 inches in diameter.

That seems like an awfully tight pattern at 30 yards. It can only be explained by the existence of a magic BB that would ride herd on the other BBs, keeping them as bunched up as possible.

The narrative of this story is coming along nicely...

The White House kept this story a secret for more than a day. Scottie claims that no one at the White House knew about it because everyone was so concerned about getting Whittington medical care that no one had time to call the president. Sorry but that's a dog that won't hunt.

Maybe I can believe Cheney accidentally shot someone if he was actually hunting, but he wasn't. Hunting has nothing to do with what he was doing, which was shooting at caged pheasants that were released three feet away from him. He killed over 400 of them. How the hell do you accidentally shoot someone in the face with a shotgun in a situation like this?

MSNBC reported that Cheney had been drinking before shooting the old man in the face, but then all traces of this comment were erased, thrown down the memory hole, scrubbed from reality.

Then we have the blame the victim narrative.

Everything about this story is getting smoothed over and whitewashed. Whittington wasn't shot in the face, he was "peppered".

Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong said.

"The vice president didn't see him," she continued. "The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by God, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good."

More peppering-

Hospital officials in Corpus Christi announced Tuesday that Whittington had suffered a "minor heart attack" and was returned to the intensive care unit.

...

"At this distance he's peppered with lot of small holes," said Dr. J. Wayne Meredith of the Wake Forest School of Medicine, who has seen similar injuries.

When did people start referring to shootings as "pepperings"? Isn't that something you do to a steak? And just what the hell is a minor heart attack?

Dailykos has a good diary entry about this that really makes you wonder what the hell is going on.