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Harry Whittington, the man who former Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot while they were hunting quail on a Texas ranch 17 years ago, has died. He was 95. Whittington died at his home Saturday in Austin, family friend Karl Rove said Monday. Before Whittington was thrust into the national spotlight after the accidental shooting, the attorney was long known for helping build the Republican Party in Texas into the dominant political force it is today and for being the man governors went to when they needed to clean up troubled state agencies. […] Cheney was criticized for breaking a...

KENEDY COUNTY, Texas - Vice President Dick Cheney has finally been cleared of any lingering suspicion in the February 2006 hunting incident that landed 78-year old Texas lawyer Harry Whittington in the hospital and put the eyes of a skeptical nation squarely on America's second-in-command. The Kenedy County sheriff's office, having reexamined the case due to pressure from the citizenry, determined that, contrary to initial reports, Whittington actually shot first in the fracas, endangering Cheney and prompting the retaliatory shot that lodged shotgun pellets in the lawyer's torso, face and neck. Cheney's response was described by the sheriff's office as...

Feb. 27, 2006 issue - Like Dick Cheney, veteran hunter John Freck knows the feeling of raising a shotgun to a covey of quail. "You get a huge adrenaline rush when the birds flush," says Freck, who regularly pursues quail with his German shorthaired pointer, Gunnar. That rush is one of the reasons hunters love the sport. But it's also the cause of accidents. No matter what else they may think of Cheney, hunters around the country agreed last week that the vice president, known as a careful sportsman and a good shot, broke a cardinal rule: in that exhilarating...

What really happened in the brushy South Texas wild that day? How one shot turned a genteel quail hunt into a political crisis? The delicate and the dangerous meet in the ranch lands of South Texas. In the winter, quail gather in the soft gold of prairie sedge, but snakes, scorpions and wild-boar-like javelina lurk too. In 1999 a fourth-generation South Texas rancher named Tobin Armstrong testified before Congress that he sometimes found illegal immigrants dead of dehydration in the unforgiving brush of his 49,300-acre ranch. It was there that Vice President Dick Cheney, out with a hunting party that...

Brit Hume was in his morning staff meeting at Fox News yesterday when his cell phone rang. It was Dick Cheney. The network's Washington managing editor had been pressing for the interview that every news organization was hotly pursuing, and now the vice president was saying that he would talk to Hume -- and only Hume -- about the hunting accident that has put him at the center of a fierce Beltway storm. In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Vice President Cheney discusses his accidental shooting of friend Harry Whittington for the first time. "I felt the need...

by Mark Finkelstein February 18, 2006 Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Neal Gabler's gotta take outlandish swipes at the Bush administration on Fox Media Watch. And, perhaps in a form of childish defiance, Gabler also has a penchant for biting the Fox hand that feeds him. On tonight's episode, Gabler: Claimed that Vice-President Cheney "doesn't believe in a free press." Described the shooting accident as "idiocy" on the VP's part. Accused Brit Hume of not asking the 'major question' in his interview of Cheney [having to do with the timing of notification]. Seconded the notion that the shooting might...

Sorry Democrats, your latest attempt to lynch the Bush Administration fell short, again. In the classic style of today’s left wing attack machine, they overreached and the media got left with their pants down. How embarrassing it must have been to find out that Dick Cheney took the correct steps to make sure his friend received the proper medical care, the police were notified, and that the supposed cover up amounted to the local paper scooping the White House Press Corp. It is a case of reporters who have become accustomed to having the news spoon fed to them. Where...

It's been a rough and tumble week in the White House press room over the Cheney hunting story. Many viewers have written me with praise and plenty of criticism about my questioning of press secretary Scott McClellan. Let me say at the outset that I was wrong to lose my temper at Scott McClellan. I've worked well with Scott since we first met during the 2000 campaign. Monday, he suggested my aggressive questioning about the disclosure of the hunting accident was a stunt for the cameras. He said this during a morning OFF CAMERA briefing, which undercut his point. Furthermore,...

by Mark Finkelstein February 17, 2006 It wasn't enough for Chris Matthews to analogize the Bush administration to a family of Mafia killers. He had to call President Bush "Fredo," the weak brother. Matthews' theory was that Bush was unable to control Cheney's handling of the shooting incident in a manner similar to which Fredo was unable to control his wife. As he amply demonstrated at his press conference today, Harry Whittington is not on life support, but Matthews was working as feverishly as an EMS on a heart attack victim to keep the Cheney story alive. And in doing...

Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened,And I will give you rest.Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, For I am gentle and humble in heart, And you will find rest for your souls,For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. Natthew 11: 28-30

Some of wackiest of the wacko left are now saying that the accidental shooting of Harry Whittington by Dick Cheney last weekend wasn't an accident after all, but rather a warning to "Scooter" Libby not to testify against Cheney in the upcoming "Plamegate" trial. Barry Saunders at newsobserver.com writes: Accident my eye. Or rather, Harry Whittington's eye. If you believe it was just an accident that Vice President Dick Cheney shot his hunting companion last weekend, you obviously have never seen "The Godfather" movies. Just as surely as a fish wrapped in a bulletproof vest means "Luca Brasi sleeps with...

Vice President Dick Cheney returned to his home state Friday, getting a standing ovation from lawmakers shortly after the lawyer he accidentally shot made his first public comments about last Saturday's hunting trip. "I want to thank you for that welcome home," Cheney told the Wyoming lawmakers. "It's a wonderful experience to be greeted by such warmth by the leaders of our great state. It's especially true when you've had a very long week. Thankfully, Harry Whittington is on the mend and doing very well."

Breaking on Fox.

THE INVESTIGATION into Richard Bruce Cheney, vice president of the United States, president pro tem of the Senate and potential future ruler of "the Federation," continues amid the possibility of a host of charges, including assault, criminal negligence and excessive grimacing. It's safe to say that the random violence that Richard Bruce "Shooter" Cheney committed last weekend on Harry Whittington may forever change his life, his and, let's not forget, the life of his daughter, Mary (who, according to Democrat sources, is a lesbian). The Armstrong ranch is now a crime scene. As congressmen and other GOP officials scramble frantically...

The irregular heartbeat suffered Tuesday by the 78-year-old lawyer shot by Vice President Dick Cheney — apparently caused by a birdshot pellet lodged in or next to his heart — likely will not require surgery or long-term medication, a Ben Taub trauma surgeon said. "We see a shotgun wound almost once a week here," said Dr. Kenneth Mattox, chief of staff at Ben Taub General Hospital, one of Houston's leading trauma centers. "For a bullet the size of a birdshot pellet to create atrial fibrillation would be a little unusual. I'm not saying it didn't happen. Theoretically, it could happen."...

It was unfortunate that Dick Cheney had to go and shoot a lawyer. Really. He gets a lot of criticism for waiting several hours to tell the public about it. I wonder how it would be if he were a Democrat, would he have spoken up any quicker? This items looks at that possibility. http://www.staggeron.org/universe.html#dick_dem

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by Mark Finkelstein February 16, 2006 - 07:29 An unsuspecting viewer watching this morning's Today show would have thought that Fox News failed to disclose that in his interview by Brit Hume yesterday, VP Cheney acknowledged having a beer at lunch on the day of the shooting incident. But when it comes to the MSM, it pays to be 'suspecting.' Here's how NBC White House reporter Kelly O'Donnell artfully chose her words: "The official White House transcript of the interview shows Cheney said 'I had a beer at lunch.' Fox News did not show that particular clip during Brit Hume's...

Such morbid speculation has crept into the mainstream media as well. A writer for Time magazine offered this last night: He's 78. He got hit in the face and body by a spray of tiny pellets. He's back in intensive care. It's not inconceivable that the vice-president may have accidentally killed someone. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. I don't know Texas law; and I'm not a lawyer. But wouldn't this be a case of something like negligent homicide? This morning's New York Times picks up the theme: In Texas, Carlos Valdez, the district attorney in Kleberg County, said...

by Mark Finkelstein February 15, 2006 - 22:50 I suppose that quoting Al Franken for evidence of liberal media bias is, if you'll excuse the expression, like shooting fish in a barrel. Nevertheless, perhaps it's useful for the archives to record one of Franken's remarks this evening in the course of his appearance on MSNBC's 'Scarborough Country.' Commenting on Vice President Cheney's failure to follow Harry Whittington to the hospital, Franken stated: "It's inconceivable that you don't go to the hospital unless there's a reason you don't go to the hospital. If you had been drinking, you wouldn't go to...