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For those of you who haven't been able to catch the video interview, FoxNews has the full transcript of the Vice President's sit down with Brit Hume.

My first take? This makes the whole thing more weird, not less. Some key excerpts:

HUME: Now, you're a seasoned hunter? CHENEY: I am, for the last 12 or 15 years. HUME: So, you know all the procedures and how to maintain the proper line and distance between you and other hunters and all that, so how, in your judgment did this happen? Who — what would cause this? What was the responsibility here? CHENEY: Well, ultimately, I am the guy who pulled the trigger, that fired the round that hit Harry. And you can talk about all of the other conditions that existed at the time, but that is the bottom line. And there is no — it's not Harry's fault. You can't blame anybody else. I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend. And I say that's a day I'll never forget….

Nice of him to take responsibility. But if, as he suggest, he has known all along that he was responsible, why on earth did he let people blame the victim for so long? After all, he claims this man as his friend. If I shot my friend, I sure as hell wouldn't want anyone saying it was his fault.

Also, this whole "I shot the gun" thing is a bit odd, no? Obviously you shot the gun. Admitting to that is like admitting to breathing. The question is, did you do something wrong, and do you admit it? Cheney claims to be an experienced hunter, and his own description violates basic hunting protocols on several counts. Why no admission of that?

CHENEY: Well, my first reaction, Brit, was not to think I needed to call the press. My first reaction is my friend Harry has been shot. And we've got to take care of him. That evening, there were other considerations, we need to make sure his family was taken care of, his wife was on the ranch. She wasn't with us when it happened. We got her hooked up with the ambulance on way to the hospital with Harry. He has grown children. We wanted to make sure they were notified so they didn't hear on television that their father had been shot. That was important, too. We also didn't know what the outcome here was going to be. We didn't know for sure what kind of shape Harry was in. We had preliminary reports but — they wanted to do a CAT scan, for example, to see how — whether or not there was any internal damage. Whether or not any vital organ had been penetrated by any of the shot. We did not know until Sunday morning that we could be confident that everything was probably going to be OK. HUME: And when had the family — when had the family been informed? CHENEY: Well, his wife knew as he was leaving the ranch.

That explains nothing, Mr. Cheney. No one is saying that you should have called the press the instant you shot your friend in the head. That's just plain dumb. But once he was on his way to the hospital? You are the sitting Vice President of the United States of America. You just accidentally shot a man in the head with a shotgun. And you didn't think anyone needed to know?

Apparently not. But the reason is priceless. Apparently Cheney thinks his credibility is so poor that no one would have believed him if he had made the announcement himself. Instead, an announcement from a private citizen made the following morning would be more believable. Look:

HUME: Now, it strikes me that you must have known that this was going to be a national story. CHENEY: Oh, sure. HUME: And it does raise the question of whether you could have headed off this Beltway firestorm if you had put out the word to the national media as well as to the local newspaper so that it could post it on its Web site. I mean, in that respect, wouldn't that have been the wiser course of …. CHENEY: It isn't easy to do that. Are they going to take my word for what happened? There is, obviously...

The man is about as seasoned a politician as you can imagine. Does anyone actually buy that he thought it would help his case to wait 24 hours before going public? Isn't it painfully obvious to even a small child that waiting makes it look like you're hiding, and that in politics, the coverup is always worse than the initial offense? I'm sorry, but I'm just not buying it.

Hume didn't ask several questions that are really central to the story. Most importantly, one: Why did he take so long to tell the White House? From everything we can tell, Bush wasn't told for hours, and when he was told, didn't take any sort of action.

E&P is right. Just who the hell is in charge here? If you've been looking for proof that Cheney is the man behind the curtain, I'd say you finally have it.

UPDATE: C+L has the video

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