Cheney Accidentally Shoots Someone

Posted by Melissa McEwan at 3:44 PM on February 12, 2006.

I kid you not.

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.

The indispensable Brad Friedman points out that some reports are noting the shooting incident took place yesterday at 5:30pm, and asks:

Did they wait until they could report that he would be fine before releasing it at all? Would we have found out about at all, therefore, if the man had died? Did they wait until after it could be discussed on the Sunday News shows?

Meanwhile, Josh Marshall picks up on another angle of Brad's reporting--that the property owner of the land on which the shooting occurred, Katharine Armstrong, is the daughter of one of the people who hired Cheney at Halliburon. Marshall also notes:

I don't know whether there's anything more to say about the fact that Vice President Cheney sprayed a fellow hunter with shotgun shot than that it is a decent analog to the recent management of the country.

This just in: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has reversed his previous opinion and now says he considers it an ethics violation to fraternize with the veep. He will no longer join Mr. Cheney on future hunting trips.

(The Brad Blog, Talking Points Memo)

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Melissa McEwan writes and edits the blog Shakespeare's Sister.