MR. RUSSERT: Coming next: What a week for Vice President Cheney. His judgement, his future, and the behavior of the press corps through the eyes of Maureen Dowd, Paul Gigot, David Gregory and Mary Matalin. They are all next right here on MEET THE PRESS.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: Maureen Dowd, Paul Gigot, David Gregory, Mary Matalin on the week of the vice president right after this.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: And we are back. Welcome all.

Mary Matalin, let me start with you. This was on Wednesday, Vice President Cheney accepting responsibility for what happened. Let’s watch.

(Videotape, February 15, 2006)

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, it was not Harry’s fault. You can’t blame anybody else. I’m the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend.

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(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: “It was not Harry’s fault.” It seems to have evolved somewhat over a few days. Let me go back to Monday. The vice president said that he talked to Katharine Armstrong about getting the story out. And the story that first appeared was this. “After shooting two quail, ranch owner Katharine Armstrong said Harry Whittington dropped back to pick them up, but he did not vocally announce to the others when he rejoined the group. The mistake exposed him to getting shot. ‘It’s incumbent on him,’ Armstrong said. ‘He did not do that.’” And that same argument was picked up and echoed from the White House podium. Here’s the White House press secretary.

(Videotape, February 13, 2006)

Mr. SCOTT McCLELLAN: She pointed out that the protocol was not followed by Mr. Whittington when it came to notifying the others that he was there.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Initially, there was—seemed to be an attempt to blame Mr. Whittington. Was the vice president part of that? Aware of it?

MS. MARY MATALIN: Absolutely not. When I spoke to the vice president Sunday morning, he made it more than clear that it was his fault, no matter what the conditions, no matter how much the shared risk. That this should not be blamed on Harry. What happens here is that’s not the first account. That’s the wire account of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. The very first account, Katharine Armstrong just lays out the facts, and she includes in there how apologetic the vice president was at the immediate scene.

What happens as these stories go from the local to the national is you stop giving out facts. You stop answering questions, and you start making denials. “No, Cheney wasn’t drunk.” “No, it wasn’t Cheney’s fault.” So as it progressed through the week, that’s what happened.

If you go back to Katharine Armstrong’s original description, given in context to locals who understand the frequency of hunting accidents, unfortunately, the culture of Texas, through the eyes of a person who actually saw, who has an expertise, there was no fault described. She laid out the facts: what Mr. Whittington had done, what the vice president had done, and included, clearly, the vice president’s immediate reaction which was profuse apologies.

MR. RUSSERT: But they were quoting her directly, and many suggested that she also told the papers that she had first thought that the vice president had had a heart attack, so maybe she didn’t see the whole event.

MS. MATALIN: She saw enough to be able to describe the—what happened and who was where and what happened immediately afterwards. Yeah, that’s the problem with this. That’s why—that is exactly why you’re—Tim, you’re going right to the point of why we wanted to have—rather than just throw something out there that night or the first thing the next morning, why we wanted to take our time. Speak to the sheriff so we’d have the voice of authority. Have Katharine be able to share with other witnesses, and she could be an eyewitness. That’s why we wanted to take our time because there were differing accounts, and there was mass confusion. And all—the whole first night was a very human reaction to get Harry and his family attended to.

MR. RUSSERT: You mentioned “speak to the sheriff,” and this is another issue raised. The “Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren said at least one deputy was turned away shortly after the shooting because security personnel at the Armstrong ranch were not aware of the agreement between the sheriff and the Secret Service.” What was the agreement? Why wasn’t the vice president interviewed that night after Mr. Whittington was brought to the hospital? Why wasn’t he interviewed by the sheriff that night? Why did they—we wait 14 hours for an interview?

MS. MATALIN: The vice president was informed of the decision to be interviewed the next morning. The original request was that he be interviewed at 10 o’clock. He asked if he could move it up to 8 o’clock because he wanted to—shoot his day up to get to Corpus Christi to see Mr. Whittington. Now it took The Washington Post an entire week to speak to the culture of rural enforcement in a hunting area in south Texas. And it was through the voice of none other than the Democratic state party chairman.

This is rural law enforcement. They hunt from October till the end of February. There’s a presumption of accident. There was—everybody knows everybody down there. Somebody had talked to some ranch hand and said this is an accident. They never go screeching in there. Some deputy who had heard it another way went to some other border post, and nobody there wasn’t going to be allowed in to talk to anybody or let anybody in to see the vice president. That’s just national security. But the suggestion there by the press, not the locals, was that Cheney was covering up. That it’s always done this way. No, it’s not always done that way. If someone had done some reporting or even called the Democratic state party chairman, they would have learned it’s always done the other way where there’s a presumption of accident.

CONTINUED

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