Cheney's Chappaquiddick, or Cheney's Lewinsky?

Dick Cheney has finally gone public to explain why it took him so long to report his little "incident:"

I had no press person with me, I didn't have any press people with me.

He also admitted he had been drinking, but said it was just one beer at lunch time.

RJ Eskow claims the real reason for the delay is that there was a woman involved, not Cheney's wife...



Pamela Willeford, the US ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, insists Dick is "a great shot". She says she has been hunting with him before and will do so again. Her husband, Dr. George Willeford, III, an Austin gastroenterologist, was also at the Armstrong ranch but was shooting in another field at the time of the accident. Ms Willeford was side-by-side with Cheney.

Who's going to ask Lynne Cheney for a comment?

By the way, this Miami Herald article makes it sound like Cheney would have been happiest if the whole thing had just been covered up quietly:

Armstrong said she made the decision to inform the Corpus Christi Caller-Times about the accident on Sunday. Armstrong and her mother, Anne Armstrong, were too occupied with tending to Whittington and worrying about his condition to make it public on Saturday, she said.

She said she spoke to Cheney on Sunday and he agreed with her decision.

"I said, `Mommy, this [is] important news. This needs to get out,'" Katharine Armstrong said. "We ran it by the vice president and he was very mindful of his role as a guest. He said something along the lines of, `You all do whatever you are comfortable with.'"