I honestly don't care what he was looking at, or what his PR department was thinking when they decided to post it.

Frankly, having been to Montana, the Dakotas, and through Idaho--I'm going to say the background blurriness is legit. It can be a long way across those rivers, a hundred yards/meters easily enough, and if he's near the camera for that shot there's no way the camera can show the background. It's too organic to be a green-screen background, and it matches closely enough with the prior picture of Cheney fishing on the river with a rod in his hand.

No offense, but the speculation is silly. The "smoothness" is a combination of JPEG artifacts, as are the "tassels" on his hat, and given the right natural conditions (which are easily found in the Rockies) the over saturation can make things seem slightly artificial--if you can even stand to look at them. I lived in the Rockies for seven years; I know this stuff because I saw and felt them first hand.