Vice President Cheney shot a senior citizen during a hunting trip today.
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 him with shotgun pellets on Saturday while the two were hunting at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, said property owner Katharine Armstrong.
Armstrong said Whittington was mostly injured on his right side, with the pellets hitting his cheek, neck and chest, and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Whittington was in stable condition Sunday, said Yvonne Wheeler, spokeswoman for the Christus Spohn Health System.
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.
Possible punch lines:
- Dick Cheney, doing his part to end the Social Security crisis.
- Blast it. Bad intelligence, again!
- Effing trial lawyers!
Add yours below.
Update: Rick Brookhiser: “I earnestly hope that the man Cheney shot was not the prophet Mohammed.”
Meanwhile, a minor kerfuffle is emerging over the fact that the White House did not hold a news conference. Greg Mitchell:
The more than 18-hour delay in news emerging that the Vice President of the United States had shot a man, sending him to an intensive care unit with his wounds, grew even more curious late Sunday. E&P has learned that the official confirmation of the shooting came about only after a local reporter in Corpus Christi, Texas, received a tip from the owner of the property where the shooting occured and called Vice President Cheney’s office for confirmation.
The confirmation was made but there was no indication whether the Vice President’s office, the White House, or anyone else intended to announce the shooting if the reporter, Jaime Powell of the Corpus Christ Caller-Times, had not received word from the ranch owner.
Perhaps the Whittingtons wanted time to call family members and determine the nature of the injury. One can’t imagine that the White House thought they would avoid having this incident kept secret by an entire hospital staff.
Update (2/14): Comments off. See Whittington Suffers Heart Attack from Cheney Shooting for continued coverage.
