posted on February 12, 2006 01:16:46 PM new
Cheney Accidentally Shoots Fellow Hunter
WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, his spokeswoman said Sunday.
Harry Whittington, 78, was ``alert and doing fine'' after Cheney sprayed Whittington with shotgun pellets on Saturday at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, said property owner Katharine Armstrong.
Armstrong said Cheney turned to shoot a bird and accidentally hit Whittington. She said Whittington was taken to Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital by ambulance.
Cheney's spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, said the vice president was with Whittington, a lawyer from Austin, Texas, and his wife at the hospital on Sunday afternoon.
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Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
posted on February 12, 2006 01:28:21 PM new
Deadeye Dick
In his favor though, I've been in similar situations while quail hunting...it isn't like hunting ducks or doves, where they're flying straight overhead and you're pointing your shotgun up in the air...they flush out of the trees or brush right in front of you at the very last second and if you heard a covey flush out and turned to shoot and somebody happened to be there...I can see it happening pretty easily..I've come close to shooting the dog, or the horse, but never another hunter.
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posted on February 12, 2006 01:36:47 PM new
Yep profe and it is a little crazy depending on the size of the covey flushed. Couple of times I had pellets whizz past my ear from a relative in a hurry.
Ron
"If you can't refute the words, accuse the poster of being someone else."
posted on February 12, 2006 04:36:29 PM new
Knew there was more to the story:
Cheney probably thought it was Speepa or one of Sheepas back door buddys making a suprize attack.
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Whittington shot a bird and went to look for it in the tall grass, while Cheney and the third hunter walked to another spot and discovered a second covey.
Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong said.
"The vice president didn't see him," she continued. "The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by god, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good."
Whittington has been a private practice attorney in Austin since 1950 and has long been active in Texas Republican politics. He's been appointed to several state boards, including when then-Gov. George W. Bush named him to the Texas Funeral Service Commission.
Whittington owns property in Travis County worth at least $11 million, the Austin American-Statesman reported last year, not counting a downtown block at the center of a long-running dispute with the city over a condemnation issue.
Armstrong, owner of the Armstrong Ranch where the accident occurred, said Whittington was bleeding and Cheney was very apologetic.
"It broke the skin," she said of the shotgun pellets. "It knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn't get in his eyes or anything like that."
"Fortunately, the vice president has got a lot of medical people around him and so they were right there and probably more cautious than we would have been," she said. "The vice president has got an ambulance on call, so the ambulance came."
Cheney is an avid hunter who makes annual hunting trips to South Dakota to hunt pheasants. He also travels frequently to Arkansas to hunt ducks.
Armstrong said Cheney is a longtime friend who comes to the ranch to hunt about once a year and is "a very safe sportsman." She said Whittington is a regular, too, but she thought it was the first time the two men hunted together.
"This is something that happens from time to time. You now, I've been peppered pretty well myself," said Armstrong.
posted on February 12, 2006 05:47:50 PM new
Doesn't matter Bear - he is just not going to live this one down. It's too damn funny. He should just be glad that it's considered a funny incident and not a tragic one and live with the ribbing.
Good thing they were hunting quail and not deer
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Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
posted on February 13, 2006 05:17:52 PM new
Yeah, a guy here did something similar. He's still getting razzed about it. And it's not the downstater that shot his scrotum off in a local bar with the handgun in his pocket. (The bar actually still has the stool...eight years later!)
classic- Love the lawyer remark!
pi- Congrats on the smoking! I'm not quite "in-that-place" yet...someday, maybe.
posted on February 13, 2006 05:52:16 PM new
The 24 hours delay in reporting VP Cheney's hunting accident has finally been explained.
It seems there was confusion between Cheney and his hunting party and a Texas Parks & Wildlife agent as to the exact bag limit on attorneys.
Once the limit was determined to be one, the incident was reported.
PS,,,Anyone hunting S Texas quail with a 28 ga shotgun has my respect., its hard enough to hit one with a 12 ga.. (A 28 ga shell has approx 1/2 the shot charge of a 12 ga.)
"“More Iraqis think things are going well in Iraq than Americans do. I guess they don’t get the New York Times over there.”—Jay Leno".
[ edited by Bear1949 on Feb 13, 2006 05:55 PM ]
posted on February 13, 2006 08:09:58 PM new
Bear, have you ever shot a 28 ga. shotgun? I have a single barrel 28 ga. that throws a heck of a nice pattern, perfect for quail or cute cuddly little bunny rabbits.
posted on February 13, 2006 08:36:58 PM new
Never shot a 28. Have shot every thing else. My favorite is an old Winchester Super X1 in 12 ga.The first shorgun I ever fired was my fathers Belgium Browning Sweet 16.
I've had the wants lately for a black powder muzzle loader shotgun.
"“More Iraqis think things are going well in Iraq than Americans do. I guess they don’t get the New York Times over there.”—Jay Leno".
posted on February 13, 2006 08:47:22 PM new
He forgot to yell "FORE". Gerald Ford beaned a spectator with a golf ball, Cheney peppered the lawyer with bird shot.
The 78-year-old lawyer who was shot by Vice President Dick Cheney in a hunting accident has some birdshot lodged in his heart and he had a "minor heart attack," a hospital official said Tuesday.
Peter Banko, the hospital administrator at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial, said Harry Whittington had the heart attack early Tuesday while being evaluated.
posted on February 14, 2006 12:13:05 PM new
Well that's not good.
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Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
posted on February 14, 2006 01:55:17 PM new
No, it's not...takes the humor out of Cheney's spin to the tale.
Wittington, at his age is lucky to be alive. According to AP, doctors performed a cardiac catheterization and expect him to remain hospitalized for another week.
posted on February 14, 2006 02:29:12 PM new
The victim, Harry Whittington, was immediately moved back to the intensive care unit for further treatment, said Peter Banko, the administrator at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial in Texas.
Banko said there was an irregularity in the heartbeat caused by a pellet, and doctors performed a cardiac catheterization. Whittington expressed a desire to leave the hospital, but Banko said he would probably stay for another week to make sure more shot doesn't move to other organs or to other part of his body.
"Some of the bird-shot appears to have moved and lodged into part of his heart in what we would say is a minor heart attack," Banko said in a news conference outside the hospital.
MAYBE THE WHITE HOUSE CAN CALL THIS "COLLATERAL DAMAGE". WHAT EVER THEY CALL IT ITS DAM SERIOUS STUFF.
posted on February 14, 2006 02:52:06 PM new
Cheney Shoots a Texas Liberal
Feb. 13, 2006
By Molly Ivins
UPDATE: Check out Truthdig’s extensive and continuing coverage of the heart attack of Cheney’s shooting victim.
Of course the jokes are flying all over Texas—what’s the fine for shooting a lawyer?—and so forth. Dick-Cheney-shooting-Harry-Whittington is fraught, as they say, with irony. It’s not as though the ground in Texas is littered with liberal Republicans. I think the vice president winged the only one we’ve got.
Not that I accuse Harry Whittington of being an actual liberal—only by Texas Republican standards, and that sets the bar about the height of a matchbook. Nevertheless, Whittington is seriously civilized, particularly on the issues of crime, punishment and prisons. He served on both the Texas Board of Corrections and on the bonding authority that builds prisons. As he has often said, prisons do not curb crime, they are hothouses for crime: “Prisons are to crime what greenhouses are to plants.”
In the day, whenever there was an especially bad case of new-ignoramus-in-the-legislature—a “lock ’em all up and throw away the key” type—the senior members used to send the prison-happy, tuff-on-crime neophyte to see Harry Whittington, a Republican after all, for a little basic education on the cost of prisons.
When Whittington was the chairman of Texas Public Finance Authority, he had a devastating set of numbers on the demand for more, more, more prison beds. As Whittington was wont to point out, the only thing prisons are good for is segregating violent people from the rest of society, and most of them belong in psychiatric hospitals to begin with. The severity of sentences has no effect on crime.
Texas still keeps the nonviolent, the retarded, senior citizens, etc. locked up for ridiculous periods—all at taxpayer expense. If we could ever get to where we spend as much per pupil on education as we do per prisoner, this state would take off like a rocket. In 2003, we spend nearly $15,000 per prisoner, while average per-pupil spending was just over $8,000.
I am not trying to make a big deal out of a simple hunting accident for partisan purposes—just thought it was a good chance to pay tribute to old Harry, a thoroughly decent man. However, I was offended by the never-our-fault White House spin team. Cheney adviser Mary Matalin said of her boss, “He was not careless or incautious [and did not] violate of any of the [rules]. He didn’t do anything he wasn’t supposed to do.” Of course he did, Ms. Matalin, he shot Harry Whittington.
posted on February 14, 2006 03:09:32 PM new
What if God forbid, Harry Whittington dies from buck shot in his heart or infection? Could Cheney be charged with Man Slaughter?
I heard a rumor today that old Dick's Meds might make his decision to hunt a bad choice. Dickey's MEDS might in-pair vision,thoughts or reflexes like a few drinks would.
