Thursday, February 16, 2006

Quail Hunting: When One Beer Is One Too Many

I was out on my AM run, tromping the frost as it was pretty cold today when I remembered a short sentence or two in the Big Dick's unsworn testimony infront of Bret Hume yesterday. It occured to me that, perhaps, when you are out galavanting about with weapons with a giant catered hunting expedition, you should not be consuming even one beer. You see, regardless the number of alcoholic beverages one consumes, you are certainly under the influence. You may not be technically drunk - as in surpassing the legal limits and no longer allowed to drive heavy farm machinery. But, you are still slightly intoxicated. Maybe when you are out quail hunting with your friends, one beer is one too many.

Have a look - the Veep says outright twice that no one was drinking on this hunting adventure - which sounds more like a roving party akin to the killing of wide swaths of buffalo by train that occured near the turn of the last century. But he fingers himself by admitting he had one beer at lunch. Does that fit the definition of "not drinking?" Nope. Not in my book either:
Q Was anybody drinking in this party?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No. You don't hunt with people who drink. That's not a good idea. We had --

Q So he wasn't, and you weren't?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Correct. We'd taken a break at lunch -- go down under an old -- ancient oak tree there on the place, and have a barbecue. I had a beer at lunch. After lunch we take a break, go back to ranch headquarters. Then we took about an hour-long tour of ranch, with a ranch hand driving the vehicle, looking at game. We didn't go back into the field to hunt quail until about, oh, sometime after 3:00 p.m.

The five of us who were in that party were together all afternoon. Nobody was drinking, nobody was under the influence.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nope I can't agree. Didn't the incident happen in the late afternoon. I mean...I'm a motorcyclist, and I absolutely will not mix drinking and riding. But that said, if the interval is going to be 3+ to 4 hours or more, then it's not so clear. How long does it take to metabolise a beer, anyway?

Here's another thought though...what about drowsiness? As I get older it gets harder and harder to stay awake in the late afternoon, especially if I've had a big lunch like...BARBEQUE! Withough Peets, I'd be takin' an afternoon siesta, and Cheney is almost 3 decades my senior.

Maybe it was naptime for old Dick?

pissed off patricia said...

I don't know. But I do know that I have never heard of a guy, out with the guys at a "sporting" deal, who had only one beer with lunch. Finding a guy who did that would be about as difficult as fincing WMD in Iraq.

isabelita said...

I'm just disappointed he didn't shoot himself. Other than being reminded of his arrogance, this is what I take from this whole pile of crap incident.
Hey, my secret password is "fumyeffg!" What a fumy effing thing Cheney is!

Unknown said...

Hey PoP, with the entourage that the Big Dick's hunting party was, I wouldn't be surprised that they were both packing weapons of mass destruction and a couple of kegs. With that many people on the ride, I am sure more than one of them was having more than one, but now that they have their story straight after serveral days of silence, you won't get that out of any one unless their conscience wears on 'em or the poor man who got shot dies in the hospital.

Just two questions for the Veep that didn't get asked in the interview - was your Blood alcohol level tested?

If you were any one other than the Veep would it have been a criminal investigation?