“old friend” or “potential grand jury witness?”

There has clearly been a great deal of confusion over who told what to whom and when regarding the accident in which Vice President Dick Cheney shot longtime friend Harry Whittington while quail hunting.

In an attempt to try to clear some of this up, we’ve scoured available public resources and prepared the following timeline:

Saturday

6:50 PM : Cheney accidentally shoots Whittington.
6:51 PM: Secret Service medical personnel try to convince Cheney that Whittington will not be helped by sucking the blood out of his wounds. Cheney notes he wasn’t thinking about Whittington.
7:30 PM: Crack Cheney media team concludes that if they maintain a complete media blackout the issue “will probably just blow over.”

Sunday

9:00 AM: During a routine media inquiry Cheney press secretary denies any knowledge of there being a “Dick Cheney” and asks the reporter to spell the name while pretending to tap it into a computer.
10:15 AM: Secret Service blocks off road to Cheney residence in Washington DC and changes signs outside to read: “Home Depot Coming Soon.”
11:23 AM: After being shown pictures, video tapes, and recordings, Cheney Press Secretary finally concedes that while he may vaguely recall there being a “Vice President Dick Cheney as you say” he continues to deny any knowledge of his whereabouts.
2:48 PM: Hunting accident story hits local paper.
2:49 PM: Cheney Press Secretary issues statement: “Oh, THAT Dick Cheney.”

Monday

9:00 AM: When President Bush calls, Dick Cheney answers the phone using a fake accent, says “no hablo Inglis,” and starts crumpling a piece of paper in the receiver.
12:27 PM: Members of the White House Press Corps, enraged that they were not the first ones notified of the shooting, go on a wild rampage through the streets of Washington DC, vowing “bad press for the infidels” and ransacking a KFC (after first expensing lunch).
4:37 PM: Crack Cheney media team decides that their original plan to tell the media nothing is not working as well as planned and determines that if they tell the media twice as much nothing as before, the writers for late night comics won’t have any material to work with.
11:35 PM: Several writers for the late night comics are admitted to area hospitals after bursting spontaneously into flames.

Tuesday

12:18 PM: Concerned that news events were distracting the focus from themselves, members of the White House Press Corps kidnap Press Secretary Scott McClellan demanding that the White House show them more respect and cultural sensitivity.
2:20 PM: Crack Cheney media team consults with famed physicist Stephen Hawking to see if it is possible to actually unrelease news to the press thereby reducing the total amount of information existing in the universe without violating the first law of thermodynamics.
 6:37 PM: Former President Jimmy Carter declines to join his fellow Democrats in denouncing Cheney believing that such petty politicking is best kept to funerals.
8:00 PM: Members of President Bush’s own crisis response team, veterans of the Katrina disaster, begin preparing a DVD for the President.

J.