Posted on 02/15/2006 6:51:55 PM PST by wjersey
President Bush's top political aide, Karl Rove, pushed Vice President Dick Cheney to speak publicly about shooting a fellow hunter, sources tell CBS News.
Rove worried the vice president's silence on the issue was becoming a political problem, CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports.
Cheney is in a "state of meltdown" over shooting his friend and the political fallout it has caused, a source close to the Cheney has told CBS News. On Wednesday, he accepted full blame for the incident and defended the decision to not publicly disclose the accident until the following day.
Cheney described when he shot 78-year-old Harry Whittington as "one of the worst days of my life."
"I'm the guy who pulled the trigger that fired the round that hit Harry," Cheney told Fox News Channel in his first public comments since the shooting Saturday in south Texas.
CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger reports another source within the White House said "you can imagine how upset the vice president is," adding that the Whittington family is worried about Cheney.
Cheney described seeing Whittington fall to the ground after he pulled the trigger while aiming at a covey of quail.
"The image of him falling is something I'll never ever be able to get out of my mind," Cheney said. "I fired, and there's Harry falling. It was, I'd have to say, one of the worst days of my life at that moment."
Cheney has been under intense political pressure to speak out about the shooting incident, which has become a public relations embarrassment and potential political liability for the White House. Until Wednesday, Cheney had refused to comment on why he withheld information about the shooting, which prolonged the controversy and made him the butt of jokes.
But Borger reports it the incident has not hurt the president's relationship with Cheney, and a source told her the two are still close.
Cheney was soft-spoken and somber during the interview with Fox's Brit Hume.
"You can talk about all of the other conditions that exist at the time but that's the bottom line and — it was not Harry's fault," he said. "You can't blame anybody else. I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend."
Cheney said he had had a beer at lunch that day, but nobody was drinking when they went back out to hunt several hours later.
Texas officials said the shooting was an accident, and no charges have been brought against the vice president.
A report that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department issued Monday said Whittington was retrieving a downed bird and stepped out of the hunting line he was sharing with Cheney.
"Another covey was flushed and Cheney swung on a bird and fired, striking Whittington in the face, neck and chest at approximately 30 yards," the report said.
"I ran over to him," Cheney said. "He was laying there on his back, obviously, bleeding. You could see where the shot struck him."
He said he has no idea if he hit a bird because he was focused on Whittington.
"I said, `Harry, I had no idea you were there.' He didn't respond," Cheney said.
Whittington was reported doing well at a Texas hospital Wednesday, a day after doctors said that a pellet entered his heart and he had what they called "a mild heart attack."
Hospital officials said the Texan, though still listed in intensive care, had a normal heart rhythm again Wednesday afternoon and was sitting up in a chair, eating and planning to do some legal work in his room.
Cheney has been roundly criticized for failing to tell the public about the accident until the next day. He said he thought it made sense to let the owner of the ranch where it happened reveal the accident on the local newspaper's Web site Sunday morning.
"I thought that was the right call," Cheney said. "I still do."
Cheney said he agreed that ranch owner Katharine Armstrong should make the story public, because she was an eyewitness, because she grew up on the ranch and because she is "an acknowledged expert in all of this" as a past head of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. He also agreed with her decision to choose the local newspaper as the way to get the news out.
"I thought that made good sense because you can get as accurate a story as possible from somebody who knew and understood hunting and then it would immediately go up to the wires and be posted on the Web site, which is the way it went out and I thought that was the right call," Cheney said.
"What do you think now?" he was asked.
"I still do," Cheney responded. "The accuracy was enormously important. I had no press person with me."
Armstrong told reporters that Whittington made a mistake by not announcing himself as he returned to the hunting line after breaking off to retrieve a downed bird. But Cheney, an avid and longtime hunter, said Whittington was not to blame.
Through hospital officials, Whittington has declined to comment.
"He still kind of wonders what all the hoopla is about," said Peter Banko, administrator of Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial.
Cheney was using No. 7½ shot from a 28-gauge shotgun. Shotgun pellets typically are made of steel or lead; the pellets in No. 7½ shot are just under one-tenth of an inch in diameter.
The pellet that traveled to Whittington's heart was either touching or embedded in the heart muscle near the top chambers, called the atria, officials said.
more anonymous sources. Who wants to bet, theres no such person, just something the reporter made up to advance the story
The source, of course, joe wilson/plame!!!
After seeing him today, that is my take on it, too.
It is one thing to run the White House Situation Room on 9-11, quite another to shoot your friend.
He seemed devastated to me and either didn't give a damn about contacting the press, regardless of the mess he knew it was going to make, or he decided to take the heat and let his friends have a few hours of peace before the onslaught from the White House Press Clerks.
Bingo, how can they print things like this with no verification.
I think he is upset, how would you like to shoot your buddy by accident, kinda like hitting a kid on a bike, you feel like hell.
I think Cheney's explanation for the delay (and it was not that long) in announcing the accident is quite credible: first reports (unreleased) were that the injury was minor. It made perfect sense to wait to determine the gravity of the injuries to Mr. Cheney's friend instead of releasing a report that the injuries were minor. Imagine the furor if that had happened!
With all due respect to bikepacker, even a quick release of the story to the national media would not have significantly tempered their predictable reaction. And prematurely releasing information regarding the condition of the victim could have been very damaging if it understated the seriousness of the victim's injuries which required in-hospital evaluation.
Like that didn't happen anyway.
Look I agree that the moonbats would be in full high pitch flight - bouncing echolocations looking for any cracks, even if it had been released an hour afterwords.
But by delaying, they just gave them read meat.
RED meat, anyway ;-)
I heard today on Fox that Cheney was using "5.5 mm" shot. Ouch.
Hell, the press couldn't even tell you which end of the gun the bullet comes out of - getting into details about the choke or barrel length would probably cause them tp go into seizures. The fact they're trying to push a load of crap about Cheney deliberately aiming a rifle at Whittington just demonstrates their total stupidity; if Cheney had hit him in the neck with a centerfire rifle round, Whittington would most likely have been dead before he even hit the ground.
There are two types of stories above all others where the media can be guaranteed to make complete jackasses of themselves because they don't know doodly-squat yet pretend they're experts, and those are stories involving guns and stories about aviation.
Last night I saw a narrative by the local Texas press. Seems to me that they were indeed in the best position to get the story and check it out. They knew the community and the players in a way no national media person would have.
They're only off by a factor of 2.4 -
0.09" x 25.4 mm/inch = 2.29 mm.
In media terms, that makes the person who did this calculation a math whiz. He or she ought to go to engineering school and build a bridge. I won't drive on it, though.
And they have the documents to prove it!
Nope.
I believe the press is going crazy because this White House is too doggone boring. Nothing salacious, people generally get along, even the scandals are about dealing with issues, not about personal behind covering.
Frankly, the press is acting like spoiled, bored children.
From what has been floating around there you might be in luck. Anne Armstrong was on the board at Halliburton when they hired Cheney. She is the mother of Katharine Armstrong the witness to this accident.
floating around there
floating around out there
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