The above photo shows Vice President Dick Cheney speaking to reporters at the bedside of the man who he "accidentally" shot this weekend while on a hunting trip in Texas (full story).
A spokesman for the vice president identified the shooting victim as Harry Whittington, but sources close to the incident suggest "Harry Whittington" is a Secret Service code name for Cheney's indicted former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
"Honestly, I didn't mean to shoot Scoot-- I mean, Harry Whittington," the vice president told reporters in "Mr. Whittington's" hospital recovery room.
The shooting occurred several days after it was revealed that Mr. Libby told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald he was ordered by Vice President Cheney to leak classified national security documents to the press. The revelation could cost Cheney his job and whatever remains of his reputation amongst both Democrats and Republicans.
An EMT who attended to "Mr. Whittington" told the Huffington Post that, during the ambulance ride, he overheard Cheney mumbling, "Who's leaking now, f***ker?" and, "F***ker survived. Gotta work on my aim."
The EMT later remarked to the vice president, "Harry Whittington? That sounds like a made-up name." When contacted for clarification on Cheney's reply, the Huffington Post has learned the emergency worker has disappeared.
More proof that guns are
safe and there
is no collateral damage in sports hunting. Maybe he should have
been using quail seeking missiles
Shhhh! We're hunting Wepubwican Wawyers.
Upon hearing the news that Dick "5D" Cheney had shot Scooter
while quail hunting, president George W. Bush replied, "huh? wut da
hell? why was he hunting Dan Quail and which one was on a
scooter?"
Quick, sign Bush up for Cheney's next safari!!!!
When I was headed to Vietnam a sign in the mess hall told us
- Kill all you want but eat all you kill. Wonder what's the best
way to season a rump roast of millionaire? Maybe "doing a great job
there Dickie" is just taking Go f.... yourself to the next level.
Car hunting as all great hunters know is the most dangerous way to
track down big bird game.
its not cheneys fault,the woods are full of six foot 200
pound quail any one could have made the same mistake
I say Huff-Po sponsors a contest for posters to win hunting
trips with Bobby Knight and Dick Cheney! Then we rig it so American
Pie, Blueto, et al win! It's a win-win situation, the trolls get to
be with their idols, and, well you know the rest wink, wink ;^)
Fox News has interrupted their Natalie Hollaway coverage to
report that Cheney has shot Al-Qaeda's #2 man.
But Cheney's okay, right? Whew! That was close. A solemn
reminder the George Bush is only a heartbeat away from the
presidency.
Cheney's Oath of Office:
"I do solemnly
swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United
States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear
true faith and allegiance to the same: that I take this obligation
freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and I
will well and faithfully discharge. . . BLAM"
So typical of the administration.
Ready.
Fire. Aim.
Heh, heh, heh. Reminds me of an old Texas saying: "Shoot me
once, shame on you. Uh, er, don't get shot again."
Alternate headlines for this story:
* Cheney Shoots Hunting Companion, Says 'Duct Tape No Longer
Enough'
* Terror Alert Raised; Cheney Shoots Hunting Companion
* VP's Pacemaker Shorts; Causes Itchy Trigger Finger to Misfire
* No Quail Left Unflushed: Cheney 'Just Trying to Get Some Meat to
go With the Chablis'
* VP Cheney Mistakes Six-Foot Man in Hunting Jacket for Foot-Long
Bird
* Cheney Apologizes for Wounding Hunting Partner: 'I Used to be a
Better Shot'
Excerpts From Dick Cheney's Haiku Diary:
1.
I shot some pellets
Into the ass of a pal.
Double bourbon now!
2.
Just like Vietnam,
I watched my buddy bleeding.
Chickenhawk my ass!
3.
A Breathalyzer?
Go fuck yourself, officer!
You know who I am?
Vice President Dick Cheney
revealed today that he
shot a fellow hunter while on a quail hunting trip over the weekend
because he believed the man was the fugitive terror mastermind
Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Mr. Cheney acknowledged that the man he sprayed with pellets on
Saturday was not al-Zawahiri but rather Harry Whittington, a
78-year-old millionaire lawyer from Austin, blaming the mix-up on
“faulty intelligence.”
“I believed I had credible intelligence that al-Zawahiri had
infiltrated my hunting party in disguise with the intent of
spraying me with pellets,” Mr. Cheney told reporters.
“Only after I
shot Harry in the face and he shouted ‘Cheney, you
bastard’ did I
realize that this intelligence was faulty.”
Moments after Mr. Cheney’s assault on Mr. Whittington, Mr.
al-Zawahiri appeared in a new videotape broadcast on al-Jazeera to
announce that he was uninjured in the vice president’s attack
because, in his words, “I was in Pakistan.”
An aide to the vice president said he believed that the American
people would believe Mr. Cheney’s version of events, but
added, “If
he was going to shoot any of his cronies right now it’s a
shame it
wasn’t Jack Abramoff.”
At the White House, President George W. Bush defended his vice
president’s shooting of a fellow hunter, saying that the
attack
sent “a strong message to terrorists everywhere.”
“The message is, if Dick Cheney is willing to shoot an
innocent
American citizen at point-blank range, imagine what he’ll do
to
you,” Mr. Bush said.
Elsewhere, aviator Steve Fossett completed his three-day journey
around the globe, setting a world record for wasting both time and
money.
http://www.borowitzreport.com/
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blpic-cheneynragun.htm
http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/t/k/cheney_nra_gun.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/s/k/cheney_hunting_libby.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/f/k/cheney_talksmack.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/p/k/cheney_elmer_cheney.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/v/k/cheney_shotgun.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/u/k/cheneh_gutshot.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/y/k/cheney_quailvsperson.jpg
For Dick Cheney's future reference
• Cheney Says Shooting Based on Faulty Intelligence
• Homeland Security Department Unveils Cheney Alert System
• Dick Cheney Invites Jack Abramoff Bird Hunting
• Cheney 'Indirectly' Caused Death of Man He Stabbed On
Previous
Hunting Trip
``It was faulty intelligence: the CIA assured him that Harry Whittington was actually a pheasant.''
* No. 4 on
list of "Top Ten Dick
Cheney Excuses" -- "I thought the guy was trying to go 'gay cowboy'
on me."
* "Dick Cheney is capitalizing on this for Valentine's Day. It's
the new Dick Cheney cologne. It's called Duck!"
* "Moms, dads, if you're watching right
now, I
can't emphasize this enough:
Do not let your kids go on hunting trips with the vice
president.
I don't care what kind of lucrative contracts they're trying to
land,
or energy regulations they're trying to get lifted -- it's
just not worth it."
"But all kidding aside, and in fairness to
Dick
Cheney,
every five years he has to shed innocent blood or he violates
his deal with the devil."
--Jimmy Kimmel
THE DAILY SHOW (ROB CORDDRY)
"The Vice
President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry
Whittington.
Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail
hidden in the brush.
Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And
while the quail turned out
to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney
insists he still would have shot
Mr. Whittington in the face."
U.S. SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (REPORTED BY ROLL CALL
NEWSPAPER)
* Cheney in 2004 dismissed Leahy with an highly publicized
obscenity during a brief argument in the Senate.
"In retrospect, it looks like I got off easy," Leahy said.
* McClellan, wearing an orange necktie,
previewed a
White House appearance
of University of Texas Longhorn Football team, which wears orange
jerseys:
"The orange that they're wearing is not because they're concerned
that the vice president
may be there -- although that's why I'm wearing it."
FLORIDA GOV. JEB
BUSH
* While wearing a bright orange political sticker:
"I'm a little concerned that Dick Cheney is going to walk in."
NEW YORK POST
(IMITATING CARTOON ICON
ELMER FUDD)
"The White House took heavy flak yesterday for waiting a
vewwy, vewwy long time
before revealing that
wascally Vice President Dick Cheney had shot a fellow hunter."
Cheney becomes 'sitting
duck' on
late-night shows
WASHINGTON: As expected, jokes about US vice-president Dick
Cheney shooting his
fellow hunter accidentally added to Bush administration's
embarrassment that is already
on the backfoot over Iraq and the phantom WMDs.
Jon Stewart, whose alternate news is the staple of many news
junkies who find the regular
output depressing, spoke to his fictional 'vice-presidential
firearms mishap analyst, Rob Corddry'.
Jon Stewart: "Rob, obviously a very unfortunate situation.
How is the vice-president handling it?" Rob Corddry: "Jon, tonight
the vice-president
is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Wittington.
According to the best intelligence available, there were quail
hidden in the brush.
Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the
brush.
And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even
knowing that today,
Cheney insists he still would have shot Whittington in the
face.
He believes the world is a better place for his spreading
buckshot
throughout the entire region of Whittington's face."
Jon Stewart: "But why, Rob? If he had known Whittington was not a
bird,
why would he still have shot him?"
Rob Corddry: "Jon, in a post-9-11 world, the American people expect
their leaders to be decisive.
To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a
message to the quail that America is weak."
So ripe was the episode with comic potential that the
satirical magazine The Onion,
which lives in such spoofs, simply ran the original story.
The online magazine Slate headlined it's story 'Cheney's Got a
Gun'
after the Aerosmith song 'Jamie's got a gun'.
Democrats were quick to jump on the mishap. "Bush-Quail '06,"
cracked Democratic strategist Jenny Backus.
"The CIA assured Cheney that Harry Whittington was actually a
pheasant,"
sneered Democratic speechwriter Jeff Nussbaum.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1415112,curpg-1.cms
The 78-year-old Texas lawyer who was shot by Vice President Cheney in a hunting accident this weekend was moved from intensive care in stable condition yesterday as new details emerged showing that the White House allowed Cheney to decide when and how to disclose details of the shooting to the local sheriff and the public the next morning.
President Bush and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove were told of the shooting Saturday night but deferred to Cheney on providing information to the public, White House aides said. In what one official described as a break with the White House practice of disclosing such high-level mishaps immediately, Cheney waited more than 14 hours after the shooting to disclose it publicly.
 
Vice President Cheney arrives at
the White House
to attend a security briefing. Cheney did not comment on his
accidental shooting of a friend. (By
Ron Edmonds
-- Associated Press)
|
Cheney's spokesman said the vice president was more concerned about the health of the accident's victim, Republican lawyer Harry Whittington. But even some White House officials said Cheney mishandled the response and opened the administration to criticism that it was withholding important public information.
In his news briefing, White House spokesman Scott McClellan -- who was not alerted to Cheney's involvement in the shooting until early Sunday morning -- suggested he would have done it differently.
Cheney, 65, shot Whittington on Saturday afternoon at the exclusive 50,000-acre Armstrong Ranch near Corpus Christi during a hunting party with three other people. The host, Katharine Armstrong, said no one had been drinking before the shooting and all were wearing blaze-orange safety gear.
She said Whittington did not announce himself when trudging toward the group after picking up a quail he had just shot. Cheney did not see him as he swung his 28-gauge shotgun toward a covey of quail just taking flight, said Armstrong, who witnessed the accident. Cheney hit Whittington with a spray of birdshot in the face, neck and chest.
The White House directed reporters to Armstrong's comments and did not fault Cheney. Cheney, who had a private White House lunch with Bush yesterday, did not comment on the shooting. Late yesterday, he issued a statement that did not mention the shooting but acknowledged not having paid $7 for a permit that allows him to shoot upland birds; it said he is sending a check to the state. Cheney said he expects to be issued a warning by state authorities for not obtaining the permit.
Hunting-safety experts said the onus would typically be on a hunter who had left his usual spot in a group to let the others know where he was. "The shooter always has the ultimate responsibility" but sometimes it is impossible to anticipate mistakes made by fellow hunters, said Donnie Buckland, senior vice president of Quail Unlimited.
But the experts also said hunters are taught to learn where everyone in their party is before firing. "If you are squeezing the trigger, you will not get that shot back and you need to make sure of the target and surrounding area and make sure it is safe to shoot into to," said Mark Birkhauser of the International Hunter Education Association. The details of the shooting remain murky because Armstrong was the only person present who has provided details to reporters.
Kenedy County Chief Deputy Gilbert San Miguel Jr. issued a statement late yesterday saying the incident had been investigated by local authorities and was determined to be "no more than a hunting accident." He told reporters the case remains open.
Local law enforcement officials did not interview Cheney until Sunday morning, about 14 hours after the shooting, in an agreement worked out between the Secret Service and Kenedy County Sheriff Ramon Salinas III. Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren said at least one deputy was turned away shortly after the shooting because security personnel at the ranch were not aware of the agreement between the sheriff and the Secret Service.
In a telephone interview, Armstrong said that she, her mother and her sister, Sara Storey Armstrong Hixon, decided on Sunday morning after breakfast to report the shooting accident to the media. "It was my family's own volition, and the vice president agreed. We felt -- my family felt and we conferred as a family -- that the information needed to go public. It was our idea," Armstrong said.
The White House typically releases information immediately on incidents involving the president's personal life, such as bike-riding accidents, to avoid the appearance of covering up embarrassments. It is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, for the White House to allow a private citizen serve as its de facto spokesman.
But current and former aides said the White House rarely imposes its practices, especially on press matters, on Cheney. The vice president's office often operates autonomously in a manner that many top White House officials are reluctant to challenge.
In this case, Cheney worked with family members and former
aide
Mary Matalin on how to handle the fallout of the shooting accident,
said a person close to the vice president who demanded anonymity to
talk about internal discussions.
Armstrong contacted the Corpus Christi Caller-Times around 9 a.m.
Central time on Sunday. Asked why the information was not
disseminated on Saturday night, immediately after the accident,
Armstrong said: "The last thing that was on our mind was the media.
We were thinking about Harry."
Armstrong; her sister; Cheney; Whittington; and Pamela Pitzer Willeford, the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, went out on the ranch to hunt quail. Armstrong said the protocol they used was to have three hunters shooting at one time: While two sat in the hunt vehicle, the other three were hunting. They would then rotate.
The hunters, wearing bright-orange vests and caps, walked in a line across a pasture. From what Armstrong said she saw as she sat in the hunt vehicle about 100 yards from Cheney and the other hunters, Whittington walked back, away from the line, to look for a bird that he had shot but that a dog did not find.
He then walked forward toward Cheney, approaching from behind and to the right of him and the other hunter when the vice president shot at a quail and hit the lawyer.
The manager of a ranch in neighboring Brooks County attended a quail lunch at the Armstrong Ranch headquarters midday Sunday with Cheney. Lavoyger Durham, manager of El Tule Ranch, said the luncheon talk was of "North Korea, India, China, Taiwan."
There was no discussion about the accident the night before, he said, but it became known at the luncheon that Cheney asked to have the morning hunt canceled. "He didn't want to shoot," Durham said.
Moreno reported from Sarita, Tex.
