Transcript for February 19

MR. RUSSERT:  The suggestion being that perhaps there had been drinking going on that afternoon, and it could have been detected that evening as opposed to the next morning. And again, pointing to Ms. Armstrong’s own words, quote, “None in the hunting party was drinking alcohol, Armstrong said. No, zero, zippo. No one was drinking.” And then on Wednesday, the vice president, with FOX News, said, quote, “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 the ranch. We didn’t go back into the field to hunt quail until, oh, sometime after 3 p.m.” Was alcohol in any way, shape or form consumed during the afternoon?  And should we accept the president’s “a beer” as literally one beer?

MS. MATALIN:  What Katharine Armstrong was answering is a literal fact going to the question she was asked, which is always the case on the Armstrong ranch, you don’t drink and hunt, and you don’t hunt with drinkers. And that’s what the sheriff reported, that’s what she reported. It is true that the vice president had a beer at lunch, and let me ask anybody sitting at this table who knows the vice president, has known him for many years, has seen him in social situations, he’s known not to be a drinker. But let me ask you a more logical question—you think the Secret Service would let the vice president out, tanked up, with a loaded gun, or let him be around anybody who’s drunk with a loaded gun?  It just defies common sense that the press would even go there. And that’s why these adversarial question-and- answer periods set up the presumption that Cheney would be drunk, or having to deny that Cheney was drunk, as opposed to presuming what we all know, that he doesn’t drink, he wouldn’t hunt and drink, the Secret Service wouldn’t let anybody around him who is drinking and hunting.

That’s why we get into the—that’s why we take our time, try to slow down, try to get as many facts out as possible before we engage in what ended up, as was the case this weekend, happens way too frequently inside this bubble, inside this parallel universe of a feeding frenzy in the briefing room.

MR. RUSSERT:  Scott McClellan said he was speaking for himself and the president when he said that this could have been handled better. And many people pointed to the president’s own book, “A Call—A Charge to Keep,” when he was governor—running for governor, he had a hunting accident, he shot a killdeer rather than a dove, and immediately went to the press, had a news conference, accepted responsibility, and said, “People watch the way you handle things, they get a feeling they like you and trust you.” Could the vice president have handled this better?

MS. MATALIN:  Killing a different bird is a slightly different situation than shooting your friend in the face. And I think what most normal people would empathize with—that is, people who have a full complement of human empathy—is that a—that person who shot his friend in the face would be most concerned with that friend’s health, with giving that friend help, with getting to that friend’s family, with consoling the other parties that were in the—with him that weekend. That’s a little bit different situation. The problem with these rules is that they’re presumed to be inviolate. This vice president, who is logical and who is human, was not following the conventional rule, but he wasn’t doing anything that was irrational, that’s for sure.

MR. RUSSERT:  Once he was assured—excuse me—that Mr. Whittington was in the ambulance, on his way to his hospital, being transferred to another hospital, that any time during that night, before or after dinner, did he consider picking up the phone, calling the president, saying, “Mr. President, I want to tell you something terrible has happened. I shot a man inadvertently in a hunting accident, and I wanted you to be—to know and hear it from me”?

MS. MATALIN:  Well, understand, what’s going on in the course of the evening, they’re in this 50,000- acre farm, it took a half-hour for the ambulance to even reach them, they had to get out, so—by the time they got back and called the family, located them, got them to the hospital, and made all those machinations, it’s now, what, 10 or 11 o’clock back here?  The vice president knew that the president had been informed within the hour, he knew that Karl Rove, who’s dear friends with Katharine Armstrong and Harry Whittington, had called, so he knew that the president had a full accounting. I’m not—this question’s repeatedly asked—I’m not sure what the implication of it is. What purpose would have been served by the vice president then waking up the president to say, “Feel my pain”?  He knew he was fully informed, and he knew he was informed from personal friends, not just from the medics and the Secret Service. I just am hard-pressed to understand what is—what are we trying to—what itch are we trying to scratch?

MR. RUSSERT:  “Well, I’m involved in a story, a tragedy that may affect this administration,” and certainly it played out for the course of a week, “and you should be aware of it, Mr. President.”

MS. MATALIN:  But he was aware of it, he was aware of it.

MR. RUSSERT:  And here—in initial reports, the White House chief of staff did not know the vice president had been the shooter.

MS. MATALIN:  But Karl knew the entire story from Katharine. And I’ll tell you something else, another human element, everybody in that White House, particularly those from Texas, are long-time friends with Harry Whittington. And I’ll tell you something else, another human element here:  Everybody in that White House, particularly those from Texas, are longtime friends with Harry Whittington. I—I—all the conversations I’ve had after the fact, everyone’s concern was about Mr. Whittington and about Merce Whittington and about Sally Whittington and the whole family, and indeed the Armstrongs. Sorry, there was a human response before there was a political response.

MR. RUSSERT:  Mr. Gregory, let me talk about the media response. You’re the White House correspondent for our NBC News. This is an exchange that you had with the White House press secretary Scott McClellan. Let’s watch:

(Videotape, February 14, 2006)

Mr. McCLELLAN:  Other people in this room have questions, and we have an event coming up.

(End videotape)

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