Posted on 02/12/2006 12:46:46 PM PST by bayourant
Edited on 02/12/2006 2:10:43 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
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.
Armstrong said she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shot at a covey of quail late afternoon on Saturday.
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 found 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 told the Associated Press in an interview.
"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."
The shooting was first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
She said Whittington was bleeding but not very seriously injured, and Cheney was very apologetic.
"It broke the skin," she said. "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."
She said emergency personnel traveling with Cheney tended to Whittington, holding his face and cleaning up the blood.
"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."
Armstrong said Cheney is a longtime friend who comes to the ranch to hunt about once a year. 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.
___
Associated Press writer Paul Weber in Dallas contributed to this report.
"Cheney vs. Kennedy" hunting hat, hunting mug, and bumper sticker. Someone was gonna do it!... :)
http://www.cafepress.com/victorynow
You can't eat the damn things, but they mount real good.
Now that's funny.
Here they are:
Top Ten Dick Cheney Excuses
10. "Heart palpitation caused trigger finger to spasm"
9. "Wanted to get the Iraq mess off the front page"
8. "Not enough Jim Beam"
7. "Trying to stop the spread of bird flu"
6. "I love to shoot people"
5. "Guy was making cracks about my lesbian daughter"
4. "I thought the guy was trying to go 'gay cowboy' on me"
3. "Excuse? I hit him, didn't I?"
2. "Until Democrats approve medicare reform, we have to make some tough choices for the elderly"
1. "Made a bet with Gretzky's wife"
I haven't read the entire thread, but has anyone mentioned that the victim of the shooting was approaching unannounced? Not a smart move when hunting quail.
Um, you seem to have forgotten that you ALSO send me obscene, threatening PRIVATE email, DEMANDING that I stop posting.
Sheesh, talk about a "disconnection with reality", LOOK IN THE MIRROR!
What a delusional hypocrite!
Suffice it to say that as of this afternoon's revelations in the news, I feel more than a tad vindicated. :)
For heaven's sake. It's not like anyone died here.Petty media... sniffing for a scandal.
You must have missed the presser in front of the hospital this afternoon.
There were some extremely awkward statements issued.
One of the most curious was when the doctor issued a very terse "No comment" in reply to a simple question of whether there'd been any surgery performed on the victim. The doctor shot out an immediate "No comment", and the whole sequence was strange, and tense. It was one of those scenes where you know the reporters immediately made mental notes to the extent of "find out what kind of surgery they performed on him!"
Another "radar-raiser" statement was when the doctor said that MOST of the wounds were "superficial".
"Most" of them are superficial? OK, then what about the REST of them?
Consider the known facts, and do a little logical analysis: He was described as receiving a fairly large part of the "pattern", over an area covering the side of his face, his neck, and his upper torso.
I would really like to be a fly on the wall, and see just what, if anything, is going on with regard to any "issues" concerning "pellets" in proximity to his carotid and/or jugular, both of which are smack dab in the middle of the area that was hit, both of which are soft tissue, and both of which are very close to the surface of the skin -- skin, which in men of that age, tends to be very thin and fragile.
Might explain why he's been in intensive care for the past couple of days -- and remaining there. Might explain why the whole MAJOR news item was buried, hushed-up, and jackhammered into the GO AWAY zone.
It ain't gonna go away, and I think there is a lot more to it than we've been told.
LOL!
Sorry Don...Haven't you heard? Physicians always OVER doctor when the patient is high profile. This man is older. The press would be relentless should Whittington leave the hospital with so much as a hang nail. Cheney's people are under pressure to take extreme and profound care. Thus... we have an extended and "cautious" stay at the hospital. (MHO)
That is ALL!
"Sorry Jo... "
Oh, and:
"That is ALL!"
(Oh, right, I nearly forgot: SEE THE POST ABOVE THIS ONE! LOL!)
"Over doctor" indeed. They've been sweating bullets (no pun intended) over that "situation" with his heart and the "migrated" pellet. They have had this guy in ICU, they have inspected, xrayed, scanned, and in general scrutinized him, "Bigtime"! You know that THEY knew about that situation.
I guess every generation has to relearn "The Nixon Lesson": It's the COVERUP that gets you in trouble!
Nice work too, several HOURS after his heart attack this morning, holding a presser with Anger McClellan taking potshots at every reporter who was DOING HIS JOB!
They must be calling the plummers (hahahah, no pun intended) every hour or two to clean the BRICKS out of the toilets at the WH, as they wait to see if this guy pulls through or not.
Meanwhile, they send out the poor McClellan to earn his keep, pumping sunshine, ahem, where it does not normally raytrace. What a disgrace.
I KNEW you would enjoy this. What took you so long?
Fortunately, we will live to duel another day.
<Porgy_&_Bess>
It Ain't Necessarily So...
</Porgy_&_Bess>
If that ain't stalking... LOL!
Replying to people is not stalking.
We're not talking about "replying to people", and you know it. We're talking about a pathological need to jump down my throat the instant I post something. You must be sitting there refreshing your screen constantly, 24 hours a day, to see if I've posted anything.
That is beyond creepy.
But NOT as creepy as that obscene email you sent me, in which you ORDERED me to stop posting!
Gotta love the hypocrisy. In public, drape yourself in the flag, "free speech", "everyone" has the right to say what they want, but in PRIVATE you curse like a sailor and DEMAND that I stop posting.
And then, you have the unmitigated gall to tell ME to get on my meds?
LMAO!
You are a hoot. (From a safe distance, of course. Thank God you do not know where I live!)
I guess I'll post this, count to ten, and then go read your next snotty reply, hey? LOL!
I confess: I have a life.
<g,d&r>
Your rant was hysterical. The bricks! LOL!
You stayed up all night preparing for this one.
Admit it.
You're a good guy DJ. Enjoyed it.
Your the one that makes stuff up and puts in so called reality filters and calls it facts. Your the one that claimed I came out from under a rock or from the shadows. Your the one that calls me a stalker but keeps addressing to me. Your nuts and you know it.
Better check to see if Cheney took out life insurance on Whittington (grin).
Remember how the word "Clymer" became part of the lexicon, a "polite" term for a body part that "we're all born with"?
I have a feeling that it probably won't be too long before someone decides that "Cheney" can be used in a similar role -- for a different part, one that only some of us are born with :) The more they keep "stepping on their own..." by protracting the coverups, the more likely it is that some "late night comic" is going to chuckle one out about how "The administration again 'stepped on its Cheney'" (talk about double-entendre-potential, yikes!)
And now, for something different, from the very first time I heard about "the events", I can't stop myself from thinking, "but what happened to the cat?"
Ten "attaboys" to the first person who can provide the correct attribution for that memory-trigger.
And a bonus bowl of milk if you can also point out the real parallel between the two! (Hint: the word "milk" is the hint!)
Aieeeee!!!!!
I meant to say my own health ain't much BETTER than his, yikes!
You have a caustic wit. I'm laughing my head off.
Seriously, sorry about your heart. Take it easy
today. Relax, breath in. Tomorrow there will be
more dragons to slay.
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