The shooting occurred late Saturday afternoon while Cheney was hunting with Harry Whittington, 78, a prominent Austin lawyer, on the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas. Hearing a covey of birds, Cheney shot at one, not realizing that Whittington had startled the quail and that he was in the line of fire.

Whittington was treated on the scene by Cheney's traveling medical detail before being taken by helicopter to a Corpus Christi hospital. He was in the intensive care unit at Christus Spohn Health System and listed in stable condition yesterday evening.

Katharine Armstrong, the ranch's owner, saw what happened Saturday and told reporters yesterday that Cheney was using a 28-gauge shotgun, which shoots fewer pellets and has a smaller shot pattern than a 12-gauge shotgun, making it harder to hit the target. Whittington was about 30 yards away when he was hit in the cheek, neck and chest, she said.

According to Armstrong's account, she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shoot at a covey of quail. Whittington shot a bird and as he went to retrieve it, Cheney and the third hunter discovered a second covey.

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, according to the Associated Press.

It was Armstrong's decision to alert the news media. Cheney's office made no public announcement, deciding to defer to Armstrong because the incident had taken place on her property. Armstrong called the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, and when a reporter from the paper called the White House, the vice president's office confirmed the account.

Cheney's office referred other reporters to Armstrong for a witness account, but after speaking to some members of the media yesterday afternoon, Armstrong stopped returning phone calls.

She told reporters that the small shotgun pellets "broke the skin" and that the blast "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."

The International Hunter Education Association, which represents safety coordinators for fish and wildlife agencies and tracks incident reports by state, said on its Web site that hunting accidents in the United States have declined about 30 percent over the past decade. In 2002, the most recent year for which data were available, 89 fatal and 761 nonfatal incidents were reported. In 26 of the cases, including one fatality, the intended target was quail.

"The vice president visited Harry Whittington at the hospital and was pleased to see that he's doing fine and in good spirits," Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said yesterday. Cheney returned to Washington last night.

"The vice president was concerned," said Mary Matalin, a Cheney adviser who spoke with him yesterday morning. "He felt badly, obviously. On the other hand, he was not careless or incautious or violate any of the [rules]. He didn't do anything he wasn't supposed to do."

White House aides said President Bush was notified about the incident, although he had not spoken to Cheney as of late yesterday afternoon. "The president was informed after the accident and received updates today," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said yesterday.

Whittington is well known around Austin, an old-school Texan whose friends include a retired Catholic bishop and who plays cards with a former Texas Supreme Court chief judge. Feisty and outspoken, he is a millionaire real estate investor who is known for a reformer's streak through his service on the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, which oversees the state prison system, and the Texas Funeral Service Commission.

"His dignified presence belies a fierce competitive spirit and antipathy toward government power," the Austin American-Statesman wrote in a profile of Whittington published last July.

Cheney, an avid hunter, usually visits the 50,000-acre Armstrong Ranch, settled in 1882, once a year. He also hunts regularly at sites in Georgia and South Dakota.

The Armstrong family has a long history in Texas Republican politics and has been close to the Bush family, as well as to the vice president.

Tobin Armstrong, Katharine Armstrong's father, was a Pioneer, an elite fundraiser for Bush. After Tobin Armstrong died last October, Cheney spoke at his funeral. Tobin Armstrong described previous outings with Cheney in an Associated Press interview in 2000: "We go out when the dew is still on the grass, and then hunt until we shoot our limit. Then we pick a fine spot and have a wild game picnic lunch."

His wife, Anne Armstrong, served as co-chairman of the Republican National Committee, White House counselor to President Richard M. Nixon, ambassador to Britain for President Gerald R. Ford, and co-chairman of Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign. Bush put her on the board of Texas A&M University when he was governor, and she was on the board of Halliburton when the company hired Cheney.

Katharine Armstrong also was a Bush Pioneer, along with her now ex-husband, Warren Idsal, according to Texans for Public Justice, which monitors political fundraising.

As governor, Bush appointed Katharine Armstrong to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, which regulates hunting, among other duties. People familiar with the Saturday outing said that Cheney had obtained the proper seasonal license.

Some Cheney critics pointed out that this is not the first Cheney hunting controversy. Two years ago, the vice president was criticized for going duck hunting with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia soon after the court had agreed to hear Cheney's appeal in an lawsuit related to his energy task force. A month earlier, he had bagged about 70 stocked pheasants at a private shooting club in Pennsylvania.

"Cheney needs to start setting a less violent example by switching to target practice and leaving animals and people in peace," PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said in a statement.

"We'd advise him to pursue a less violent form of relaxation and get on with the important business of leading the country," Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, said in a statement.

Staff writer Sylvia Moreno in Austin contributed to this report.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

1.The news reports say the accident happened "around 5:30 pm" on Saturday. In Texas, quail can be hunted until 30 minutes after sunset. Sunset on Saturday, in Corpus Christi, was at 6:18, which means they were legal until 6:48. The "around" is suspicious.

2. The news reports say that after Whittington (left) had gotten off his shot and went looking for his bird, Cheney and the other hunter went to another spot where they saw a covey of quail. Texas quail might be different from Iowa quail, but in Iowa when a shotgun goes off, every quail within earshot flutters away. The story doesn't make sense.

3. None of the stories have commented on the fact that they were "road hunting", or hunting from a car. That is just about the lowest kind of low-rent, dishonorable kind of hunting there is (the phrase "road hunting" is often used synonymously with "poaching").

When I was growing up in Iowa, I went pheasant or quail hunting on scores of occasions with my Dad and others. We never would have hunted from a vehicle and it was an insult to even suggest that someone might. It was considered dangerous and declasse, as it was too great an advantage for the hunter to be "fair". It most states, including Texas, it is also illegal: Shotgun

"It is unlawful to hunt from or by means of motor-driven vehicles and land conveyances or aircraft of any kind except paraplegics and single or double amputees of legs may hunt from stationary motor-driven vehicles or land conveyances."

However, Texas exempts private property owners from the prohibition when they are on their own land and Cheney was with the property owner on his ranch. But it is still really tacky.

4. Hunting quail in Texas requires an "Upland game bird stamp", which costs $7. This is a relatively new requirement, but I'll bet Cheney didn't have one.

5. The spin is that Whittington "came up from behind the Vice President", implying that he snuck up on him or was somehow partially responsible because Cheney didn't know he was there. When hunting, it is bad form to walk in front of someone's gun. When given a choice, one would always approach another hunter from behind.

Cheney has gotten negative press in the past for participating in "canned hunts" and a couple of years ago he got really negative press for going on a canned pheasant hunt in Pennsylvania where he got between 70 and 95 birds (depending on which report is to be believed). The typical daily limit in places like Iowa and South Dakota, where we have many more pheasants than Pennsylvania, is 3 or 5 per day and a possession limit of 15 or 20.

To many of our milieu, hunting is hunting is hunting and the distinctions noted above aren't that big of a deal. To hunters, these are important distinctions. Hunting regulations are strictly enforced in most states and every sixpack Joe knows he better abide by them or he'll get in trouble. Most hunters aren't affluent suede vest guys, they are working class guys within a couple of generations of agriculatural roots. The gluttony of shooting 70 pheasant in a day is almost impossible for them to comprehend.

Focusing on the kill rather than the hunt is frowned upon. Killing more than you can eat is frowned upon. Canned hunts and that kind of over-indulgence is for the Rambo hunters, who are not thought highly of by the old-fashioned Izaak Walton league type of guys, like my Dad.

Someone should be asking if Cheney was drinking, if he was properly licensed with his Upland Game Bird Stamp, when (and if) the hunting accident was actually reported to the authorities and if anyone has investigated why the quail in Texas seem to have gone deaf.

Ms. Armstrong claims to have been in the car, but to have witnessed the shooting. If so, that would mean the hunters were fairly close, within eyeshot, which makes it even less likely that Whittington had gotten off a shot at a quail and then there were other quail still waiting around for Cheney to find them. It just does not make sense.

That seems to be the top question, right up there with: why was there an 18-hour delay in reporting the story? It's not like the Caller-Times beat reporters weren't checking with law enforcement on their usual regular basis, E&P says.

[Beth] Francesco, at the Corpus Christi paper, said she felt it was a bit odd that her newsroom had not received any information about the shooting since "we often call law enforcement in area, even on weekends. We checked in and didn’t hear anything about it."

Also odd was the story that the shooting victim, Harry Whittington, 78, was "bruised more than bloodied" according to the Houston Chronicle, and "his pride was hurt more than anything else." Yet, notes E&P, he was airlifted to a hospital and had spent more than a day in an intensive care unit. By the time the story went national, the prominent Austin lawyer was reported as being in stable condition.

The fact is that they do not know what will happen in the fall of 2006, and should the Democrats take either of the houses of Congress the stone wall they've been able to erect in front of all their crimes suddenly begins to crumble. With subpoena power the Democrats could start to dismantle the GOP crime family and there could be a whole lot more people than Scooter Libby in need of pardoning.

Who will play the Gerald Ford in all of this? Who could be counted on to be loyal and pardon them all? Allen himself would be a prime contender, as would McCain or McConnell. Though after the drubbing that BushCo. has delivered to McCain if it were me I sure wouldn't want to put him in the position of holding my life in his hands, paybacks being a bitch and all.

And then there is Condi, probably the one who could most reliably be counted upon to be the good soldier in the situation. We could be knee deep in people scrambling for power real soon.

But we do have to ask: who thought it was a good idea to put a gun in the hands of a fat, drunken, ill-tempered gimp with a bad heart in the first place?

Dick Cheney, the Vice-President of the United States, accidentally shot and wounded a 78-year-old hunting buddy while hunting at a Texas ranch this weekend.

Mr. Cheney, 65, was out with friends at a private ranch in Kenedy County late on Saturday afternoon when he accidentally sprayed an elderly companion with shotgun pellets at about 5:30 p.m.

"It appears he was peppered with a shotgun while hunting for quail," Peter Banko, an administrator at Christus Spohn Hospital Memorial, said in an interview.

Mr. Banko said the victim, lawyer Harry Whittington of Austin, Tex., suffered wounds to his face, neck and chest. He was in stable condition in the trauma intensive care unit late yesterday.

Katharine Armstrong, whose family owns the ranch, was a member of the hunting party and witnessed the accident.

She said Mr. Cheney, an experienced hunter, did not realize Mr. Whittington had rejoined the group without announcing himself, which is proper protocol among hunters.

"They had no idea he was there," Ms. Armstrong said.

"A bird flew up, the Vice-President followed it through around to his right and shot, and unfortunately, unbeknownst to anybody, Harry was there and he got peppered pretty good with a spray of 28-gauge pellets," Ms. Armstrong said.

"He was turning, facing the Vice-President, but turning to the right, and it sprayed him across the right side of his face, his shoulder, his chest and along the rib cage area," she said.

Ms. Armstrong said Mr. Cheney's medical team attended to Mr. Whittington before he was taken to the hospital.

She described Mr. Cheney as "an excellent, conscientious shot."

"The person who is not doing the shooting at the point is just as responsible, and should be, as the person actually shooting," Ms. Armstrong said.

Mr. Whittington, a wealthy Republican and donor to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush, was taken to hospital at 8:15 p.m. on Saturday.

Local media reported that officials with the Kenedy County Sheriff's Office were investigating the incident.

Mr. Cheney visited Mr. Whittington at the hospital for about 20 minutes yesterday afternoon, Mr. Banko said. The victim's wife and family members spent the day at the hospital.

"Nobody wants this to happen, but it does," Lea Anne McBride, the Vice-President's spokeswoman, told the local newspaper.

Mr. Cheney is an avid hunter and frequent visitor to the Armstrong Ranch, a sprawling, 20,000-hectare spread in south Texas. In October, he spoke at the funeral of Tobin Armstrong, the family's patriarch.

Mr. Cheney's past escapades have raised the ire of both animal activists and political watchdog groups. In December, 2003, he visited a game farm in Pennsylvania. When gamekeepers released 500 pen-reared pheasants, he shot 70 and ordered them plucked and vacuum-packed. The Humane Society of the United States exposed Mr. Cheney's "canned hunt."

Another trip a few week later raised allegations of conflict of interest. In early 2004, it was revealed Mr. Cheney had gone on a duck hunt in southern Louisiana with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, an old friend. The trip took place in January, 2004, three weeks after the high court agreed to hear a controversial case involving the Vice-President.

"Vice-President Cheney continues to demonstrate terrible misjudgment with his hunting behaviour," Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, said in an interview last night.

Mr. Pacelle said Mr. Cheney's hunts represent the worst aspects of the sport -- the "good-ol'-boy network," the use of an "unethical" hunting facility, as well as harming a companion.

"Now he's shot a hunting partner. We really don't understand what his obsession with shooting animals is. Certainly he has plenty of other things to keep him busy."
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