I cannot wait to see what Jon Stewart & Co. and the late-nite guys do with this...

<licks chops, rubs hands together & waits...>

That is all I have to say. I have been hunting since I was seven years old. I have never shot anyone or seen anyone shot. Obviously this is the first time Cheney has drawn blood. He never fired a gun for the military.

I love to drive my luxury Lexus

Always wanted to shoot a man in Texas

Had an alibi, needed no bail

Just said I thought 'twas Dan Quayle

Harry'll back my story and this will pass

He know if he don't, I'll Swiftboat his ass.

Just a heads up for the news media.  If Cheney now starts claiming he was in combat, I want some intrepid reporter to gainsay him.  

Then maybe he could ask Cheney why he continues to lie about Saddam and al Qaida.  Or why he approved the campaign against Joe Wilson.  Etcetera, etcetera.

companion wasn't the President!  :)  

if she had heard that Cheney had shot someone....and she said "Who, Libby?"

http://mail.google.com/mail/?view=att&disp=inline&attid=0.1&th=109620431a3a025e

day finding descrepancies and more details about the shooting:

Knight Ridder said there were four in the hunting party.  Wonder why they weren't identified?

ESPN has a few more details and it looks like Cheney has flown the coop back to Washington.

freepress4all at Daily Koswould like to see the out- of-state license that permits Vice President Cheney to hunt game birds in Texas

My own opinion is probably alcohol involved.  Why else wait 22 hours to report the shooting?  

of the gang that couldn't shoot straight.

They should have known - Cheney is the one who uses the verbal explitive deleted, while Bush is one who shoots the bird....

But it's too easy and too defenseless a target.

It wouldn't be sporting.

Austin Business Journal July, 2004

"Whittington named committee head

Austinite Harry Whittington was appointed chairman of the Office of Patient Protection Executive Committee by Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday.

Whittington is a private practice attorney who has been practicing law in Austin since 1950. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas and received his law degree from the University of Texas.

The committee was established in House Bill 2985 during the 2003 regular legislative session. The Office of Patient Protection is responsible for helping patients who have complaints regarding medical service from Texas healthcare providers.

He has served as chairman of the Texas Public Finance Authority Board and is a past member of the Texas Board of Corrections, which is now known as the Texas Board of Criminal Justice.

Whittington serves as a public member and chairman of the Texas Funeral Service Commission."

Austin Chronicle SEPTEMBER 3, 1999: NEWS:

BURYING THE PAST

Funeral Board Resurrected

BY ROBERT BRYCE

<SNIP>

"It's been a tumultuous week for the Texas Funeral Service Commission. On Monday, Travis County District Court Judge John Dietz ruled that Gov. George W. Bush won't have to testify in Eliza May's whistle-blower lawsuit against the agency. On Tuesday, the old TFSC board was dismissed. On Wednesday, the new board, headed by Austin lawyer Harry Whittington, took over the struggling agency. The moves are the latest developments in the ongoing drama surrounding the funeral regulatory agency. And while the new board should bring some stability to the tiny agency, the biggest development in the funeral scandal came when Dietz, a Democrat, ruled that lawyers for May, the former executive director of the TFSC, did not prove that Bush has "unique and superior knowledge" of the facts in the case. The ruling came after an all-day hearing rich in hyperbole.

Texas Attorney General John Cornyn, who appeared in court on the governor's behalf, told the court during his opening argument that "the eyes of the world are on Texas and this court to see if Texas believes in frontier justice or in the rule of law."

(LYNN BREZOSKY and NEDRA PICKLER(

<SNIP>

"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 said.

"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."

Whittington has been a private practice attorney in Austin since 1950 and has long been active in Texas Republican politics. He's been appointed to several state boards, including when then-Gov. George W. Bush named him to the Texas Funeral Service Commission.

McBride did not comment about why the vice president's office did not tell reporters about the accident until the next day. She referred the question to Armstrong, who could not be reached again Sunday evening.

Armstrong, owner of the Armstrong Ranch where the accident occurred, said Whittington was bleeding and Cheney was very apologetic.

"It broke the skin," she said of the shotgun pellets. "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."

"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."

Cheney is an avid hunter who makes annual hunting trips to South Dakota to hunt pheasants. He also travels frequently to Arkansas to hunt ducks.

Armstrong said Cheney is a longtime friend who comes to the ranch to hunt about once a year and is "a very safe sportsman." She said Whittington is a regular, too, but she thought it was the first time the two men hunted together."

positively identified?  For all we know, he could have been hunting fellow chickenhawks!

Did the bird's head look like an elephant?

I can get behind more Republican hunting trips. The kind of hunting with hard bullets would be better though.

Cheney has to hunt in a controlled enviroment.

If he doesn't he might get another heart attack.

We have to protect our leaders, don't you know?

Next, Bush will have to take English as a second language. At the US's expence! Six to ten years atleast.

He's a bad hunter.  LOL!  If he's out hunting, I want a warning so I can clear the area.  

attack on my profession is beneath you. Please aim higher.

he has a hunting license, and if not - will he be fined?

Harry Joe ShotbyVP.

why does it appear local authorities were not notified?

This is birdshot(probably 4-10), not double-ought buck(12 gauge, which I have for intruders). Had Whittington been a butterly, he'd been stung worse than a bee.

But he's a man.

Go on to something else, unless there's something else in this story. Otherwise, you look like fools to most most Americans who have a peripheral understanding of bird hunting.

you might not be pleased with the result ack!

but you must realize it was said in jest.

Bob Cesca: EXCLUSIVE: First Photo of Cheney Shooting Victim

The above photo shows Vice President Dick Cheney speaking to reporters at the bedside of the man who he "accidentally" shot this weekend while on a hunting trip in Texas (full story).

A spokesman for the vice president identified the shooting victim as Harry Whittington, but sources close to the incident suggest "Harry Whittington" is a Secret Service code name for Cheney's indicted former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

"Honestly, I didn't mean to shoot Scoot-- I mean, Harry Whittington," the vice president told reporters in "Mr. Whittington's" hospital recovery room.

The shooting occurred several days after it was revealed that Mr. Libby told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald he was ordered by Vice President Cheney to leak classified national security documents to the press. The revelation could cost Cheney his job and whatever remains of his reputation amongst both Democrats and Republicans.

An EMT who attended to "Mr. Whittington" told the Huffington Post that, during the ambulance ride, he overheard Cheney mumbling, "Who's leaking now, f***ker?"...

<snip>

link

[ES: okay, I'm human.

So shoot me.]

eom

I do occasionally exercise what we feel to be our national prerogative to chide our American brethren (and sistren), including the President, on their usage of their borrowed English language. Of course in those postings I'm always careful of my speling.

But I guess you are not.  What's foolish is to think that having a shotgun blasted in your direction is no big deal.  Those with only a peripheral understanding would think this way.

The wadding alone can kill you. Jeebus. The muzzle blast can deafen you. To be so cavalier about it is naive at best, and brutishly ignorant.  The man's life was threatened.  I'm glad he is doing ok, considering.

than to attempt sublety in my posts by now, shouldn't I?

this thread has more of the feel of a "caption contest" - without a picture to caption - than serious political content.

He could be the most dextrous - or clumsiest - hunter in the world. It wouldn't affect how I saw his policies.

If Whittington is hit in the chest and there is damage to the cartilage between the ribs and to the sternum then it will be hard to breath. The danger could be pneumonia because he cannot take a deep breaths. He is probably in a lot of pain. It is not uncommon for cracked ribs to kill this way. Also, he fell, so they have a spleen to worry about and possible head and back injuries. He may have taken some hits in his "naughty bits"; sorry this is too much like Monty Python.

I grew up hunting, dove, quail, deer, and nothing like this every occured while I was hunting. But the guy is (or was) in an ICU unit in Corpus. I'm not saying Cheney did it on purpose or anything like that. But the man who got shot is hurting if he is in an ICU, right?

that Cheney's hunting pal is still in intensive care.

reporters are not allowed in ICU. ;)

I almost shot myself in the foot with a 22, when I was 16. And I had a friend put a 9mm round in his ceiling once. Damn, the smoke was thick when our women folk walked in. Don't make too much of it.

terrorists coming up from our border with Mexico! Yeah, that's it! That's what happened.

12 Democrats go "bird" hunting with Darth Cheney.

Mark was playing the game, the bird's on your side of the net now :)

Who carried a .357 magnum in holster when he went hunting. He wandered all over the countryside with this huge thing in his holster which, knowing this man, was probably inversely proportional in size to the his dick. Anyway, one trip he was climbing over a barbed wire fence and the gigantic handgun discharged shooting off his foot. He tried litigation against the gun manufacturer claiming the gun had a defectively designed safety. He lost.

I've been a-drinkin' tonight. You haven't misspelled anything... but when someone criticizes someone's grasp of the English language in a post with two typos... I mean, come on, I'm human :D

I couldn't come up with a "topper" myself :)

Mark had a bad day and lost his funny bone. :)

mockery of myself in there too :)

It's odd that language is such a malleable instrument.

I have had full, in-depth and conceptually abstract conversations that lasted for hours, with people with whom I shared no common language, in which we were not only certain of mutual understanding but actually confirmed that understanding years later when we'd both achieved more linguistic fluidity.

I believe that the sincere desire to communicate transcends petty concerns like formal adherence to rules - or even shared language.

As a frequent traveller, I daresay you've had similar experiences where the desire to communicate completely overrode shared language - and as the leader of a community such as the Agonist, many experiences where shared language was no great help in communicating.

If the desire to hear isn't there, you could be friggin' Shakespeare and it won't make a difference.

Cheney was legally hunting with a license he purchased in November, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesman Steve Lightfoot said.