This weekend, Vice President Dick Cheney shot a lawyer in the face.
According to reports, Cheney and several others were hunting quail on the Armstrong Ranch in Texas. Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old "millionaire attorney" from Austin, shot a bird and went to look for it in some tall grass. Meanwhile, Cheney and a third hunter walked to another spot and found another covey of quail. Apparently, the quail and the attorney then broke cover at the same time. A witness said that Whittington "came up from behind" without announcing himself, and just then Cheney "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."
Katharine Armstrong, owner of the ranch, said that Whittington was bleeding and had been "knocked silly," but that luckily, "the vice president has got a lot of medical people around him . . . [and] has got an ambulance on call," and so Whittington quickly received medical attention and is now doing fine. Cheney, described as a "very safe sportsman," was said to be "very apologetic."
Maybe it's a good thing that he didn't go to Vietnam after all.
