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Date Posted: 07:53:33 02/15/06 Wed
Vice President Dick Cheney apparently broke the No. 1 rule of hunting: be sure of what you're shooting at.
Cheney wounded fellow hunter Harry Whittington in the face, neck and chest Saturday, apparently because he didn't see Whittington approaching as he fired on a covey of quail in Texas.
Hunting safety experts interviewed Monday agreed it would have been a good idea for Whittington to announce himself - something he apparently didn't do, according to a witness. But they stressed that the shooter is responsible for knowing his surroundings and avoiding hitting other people.
"We always stress to anybody that before you make any kind of a shot, it's incumbent upon the shooter to assess the situation and make sure it's a safe shot," said Mark Birkhauser, president-elect of the International Hunter Education Association and hunter education coordinator in New Mexico. "Once you squeeze that trigger, you can't bring that shot back."
Cheney, an experienced hunter, has not commented publicly about the accident. He avoided reporters by leaving an Oval Office meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan before the press was escorted in.
President Bush was told about Cheney's involvement in the accident shortly before 8 p.m. Saturday - about an hour after it occurred - but the White House did not disclose the accident until Sunday afternoon, and then only in response to press questions. Press secretary Scott McClellan said he did not know until Sunday morning that Cheney had shot someone.
Facing a press corps upset that news had been withheld, McClellan said, "I think you can always look back at these issues and look at how to do a better job."
Katharine Armstrong, the owner of the ranch where the shooting occurred, said she told Cheney on Sunday morning that she was going to inform the local paper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. She said he agreed, and the newspaper reported it on its Web site Sunday afternoon.
Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren said that about an hour after Whittington was shot, the head of the Secret Service's local office called the Kenedy County sheriff to report the accident. "They made arrangements at the sheriff's request to have deputies come out and interview the vice president the following morning at 8 a.m. and that indeed did happen," Zahren said.
At least one deputy showed up at the ranch's front gate later in the evening and asked to speak to Cheney but was turned away by the Secret Service, Zahren said. There was some miscommunication that arrangements had already been made to interview the vice president in the morning, he said.
Gilbert San Miguel, chief deputy sheriff for Kenedy County, said the report had not been completed Monday and that it was being handled as a hunting accident. He said his department's investigation had found that alcohol was not a factor in the shooting.
The National Rifle Association, a close ally of the White House, would not comment on who was to blame in the accident.
Whittington, a prominent Republican attorney in the Texas capital of Austin, was in stable condition at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial and was moved from intensive care to a "step-down unit" Monday. Doctors decided to leave several birdshot pellets lodged in his skin rather than try to remove them.
Armstrong said the accident occurred as Whittington was retrieving a bird he had shot in the tall grasses on her property. Cheney and another hunter who she declined to identify moved on to another covey of quail - Armstrong estimated it was roughly 100-150 yards away - and Cheney fired on a bird just as Whittington was rejoining them. She said Whittington was in tall grass and thick brush about 30 yards away, which made it difficult for Cheney to see him, although both of them were wearing bright orange safety vests.
"Typically when you are coming back to a line, you would say `I'm coming up,' or whatever," she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "It was completely unbeknownst to the vice president or the other shooter that Mr. Whittington was coming back up."
Duane Harvey, president of the Wisconsin Hunter Education Instructors Association, said if Whittington had made his presence known "that would have been a polite thing to do." But, he added, "it's still the fault upon the shooter to identify his target and what is beyond it."
Despite all the safety tips and training, hunting accidents are an unfortunate part of the sport. In Texas, there were 30 accidents and two hunting deaths last year, according to the state Parks and Wildlife Department. National figures kept by the International Hunter Education Association show 744 shooting accidents, with 74 deaths, in 2002, the last year for which figures were available. Twenty-six accidents involving quail hunting were reported.
The association estimates there are 15.7 million hunters who will spend about 250 million days hunting in the United States this year.
Associated Press writers Elizabeth White in Washington, T.A. Badger in Sarita, Texas, and Lynn Brezosky in Corpus Christi contributed to this report.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
After Cheney's Shooting Incident, Time to Unload
Episode Triggers a Fusillade of Wisecracks, And a Withering Blast From White House Press
By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 14, 2006; C01
It was one of those "everyone's a wise guy" days in Washington yesterday, thanks to Dick Cheney. Quipping at the vice president's expense was like shooting fish, or quail -- oh, never mind.
It's never a good thing to be a punch line in politics, and the vice president had the field to himself after accidentally shooting his hunting companion, Austin lawyer Harry Whittington, at a Texas ranch late Saturday. The accident left the 78-year-old man seriously injured. He was released from the intensive care unit yesterday.
Meantime, the incident provided a laugh bounty for gallows humorists, particularly those of the anti-Bush persuasion. Have at 'em, kids:
"Bush-Quail '06," cracked Democratic strategist Jenny Backus.
"The CIA assured Cheney that Harry Whittington was actually a pheasant," added Democratic speechwriter Jeff Nussbaum.
"The worst part is, he was aiming at the special prosecutor," contributed John Kerry spokesman David Wade.
Democratic staffers on the Hill could be heard singing a parody of Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun," using the words "Cheney's got a gun." Or marveling at how "Republicans really don't like lawyers, do they?" or circulating a quote from Bush, in a 2000 interview with the Houston Chronicle, in which he hailed Cheney as "somebody who is going to shoot straight with the American people."
This was just a small sampling, taken from amateur jokesters willing to attach their names to the one-liners.
As for the professionals: On "The Daily Show" last night, Jon Stewart, speaking as a "concerned parent," urged viewers never to let their children go on hunting trips with the vice president. "I can't emphasize this enough," Stewart said. "I don't care what kind of lucrative contracts they're trying to land, or energy regulation they're trying to get lifted. . . . He'll shoot them in the face."
Likewise, David Letterman's Top 10 list was devoted to "Dick Cheney's excuses," which included that he "thought the guy was trying to go gay cowboy on me."
As neither President Bush nor Cheney spoke publicly about the accident yesterday, it fell to White House spokesman Scott McClellan to suffer the media equivalent of birdshot. He was pressed repeatedly on why it took a day for the administration to acknowledge that the vice president had accidentally shot a man.
The most heated public moment occurred during McClellan's off-camera "gaggle" with White House reporters yesterday morning. It featured NBC's David Gregory, one of McClellan's most persistent inquisitors over the last year, who raised his voice while asking a question about the incident.
"Hold on," McClellan interrupted, pointing out that "the cameras aren't on right now. You can do this later."
"Don't accuse me of trying to pose to the cameras," Gregory replied. "Don't be a jerk to me personally when I'm asking you a serious question."
"You don't have to yell," McClellan said.
"I will yell," said Gregory, jabbing his finger in McClellan's direction. "If you want to use that podium to try to take shots at me personally, which I don't appreciate, then I will raise my voice, because that's wrong."
"Calm down, Dave. Calm down," said McClellan evenly.
The two men spoke privately after the gaggle, Gregory said later. No apologies were exchanged.
"I said what I said and I meant what I said," Gregory said. He said he and McClellan get along "very well," a point agreed upon by McClellan during a brief interview.
"David's a good guy and a good reporter," McClellan added. He said that yesterday was "one of those days where I knew exactly what to expect."
McClellan began his midday news conference with a few words about how strong the U.S. economy is. Then he took questions, none of which was about the economy. The majority of the 41-minute briefing was given over to Cheney's hunting accident.
"Scott, do you think that the shooting accident involving the vice president on Saturday should have been disclosed to the public on Saturday?" a reporter asked.
McClellan replied -- as he did to many questions -- that the first priority was to ensure that Whittington was receiving appropriate medical care.
He referred about a dozen questions to the vice president's office.
"The vice president spoke with Mrs. Katharine Armstrong," McClellan said, referring to the owner of the ranch where Cheney and Whittington were hunting. "And they agreed that she should make that information public. She was an eyewitness. She saw what occurred. And she called her local paper to provide those facts to the local paper."
Later McClellan was asked, "As press secretary, are you satisfied with the way this was handled?"
"Well," he replied, "I think you can always look back at these issues and look at how to do a better job."
After an indecipherable blur of shouted questions, Gregory's voice rose over those of his competitors.
"Let's just be clear here," Gregory said. "The vice president of the United States accidentally shoots a man, and he feels that it's appropriate for a ranch owner who witnessed this to tell the local Corpus Christi newspaper and not the White House press corps at large or notify the public in a national way?"
"Well, I think we all know that once it is made public, then it's going to be news and all of you are going to be seeking that information," McClellan replied.
Several questions followed, including three variations on "When did the president learn that the vice president had shot someone?"
In the course of the session, reporters made seven references to Cheney having "shot" someone, with four to a "shooting."
McClellan referred to the episode as an "accident." His shoulders relaxed noticeably when the questions turned, briefly, to Iranian nukes, riots over cartoons and Brownie.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
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