Cheney's Buckshot Reader

AlterNet. Posted February 16, 2006.

The saga of Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of Harry Whittington on a Texas ranch continues to unfold.

Every twist of the tale reveals more juicy details.

Here is a roundup of some of the most interesting information about the shooting that's been swirling around in the press and the blogs:

Is Pam Willeford more than Cheney's hunting partner?

Sirius Radio's Alex Bennett came out and said what many folks in the media had been whispering about but were too timid to report: Pam Willeford, the ambassador to Switzerland and Lichtenstein who was standing at Cheney's side when the shotgun went off, could be more than his hunting partner. RJ Eskew has more: "The real story is already emerging, if you're willing to do a little digging. Cheney and Whittington went hunting with two women (not their wives) …"

An AlterNet search on Cheney's ties to Pam Willeford revealed that:

• She and her husband George have made at least two overnight visits to the Bush White House between June 2002 and December 2003.
• She and her husband were overnight guests at Camp David on one occasion between January 2001 and December 2002.
• Pamela hosted a reception in Davos, Switzerland, for Vice President Cheney on Jan., 23, 2004.
• Pamela's daughter, Emily, was named deputy chief of staff to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in June 2005.

Was Cheney boozing it up?

Yes. Cheney told Fox News host Brit Hume that he drank beer before he went out hunting: "We'd taken a break at lunch -- go down under an old -- ancient oak tree there on the place and have a barbecue. I had a beer at lunch. After lunch we take a break, go back to ranch headquarters. Then we took about an hourlong tour of ranch, with a ranch hand driving the vehicle, looking at game. We didn't go back into the field to hunt quail until about, oh, sometime after 3 p.m." Cheney contended that no one in his hunting party had been drinking during the hunt.

Ranch host Katharine Armstrong at first denied there was any drinking going on: "No, zero, zippo, and I don't drink at all," she said. "No one was drinking." Later, Armstrong was described as saying that "no one that day was drinking, although she sa[id] there may have been beer available during a picnic lunch that preceded the incident," and quoted as saying," There may be a beer or two in there. But remember not everyone in the party was shooting." Those quotes were later scrubbed by the reporting agency, MSNBC, from its website.

According to the AP, "Gilbert San Miguel, chief deputy sheriff for Kenedy County, said his department's investigation had found that alcohol was not a factor in the shooting, but he would not elaborate about how that had been determined." But the importance of this tidbit is rather debatable, considering that San Miguel and his fellow officers didn't interview Cheney until Sunday morning, long after Cheney shot Whittington.

In his early life, Dick Cheney was convicted of two DWIs in an eight-month span.

What's Cheney's account of the shooting?

In his interview with Fox News host Brit Hume, Cheney said:

Cheney: There were three of us who had gotten out of the vehicle and walked up on a covey of quail that had been pointed by the dogs. Covey is flushed, we've shot, and each of us got a bird. Harry couldn't find his, it had gone down in some deep cover, and so he went off to look for it. The other hunter and I then turned and walked about a hundred yards in another direction …

Hume: Away from him?

Cheney: Away from him -- where another covey had been spotted by an outrider. I was on the far right …

Hume: There was just two of you then?

Cheney: Just two of us at that point. The guide or outrider between us, and of course, there's this entourage behind us, all the cars and so forth that follow me around when I'm out there -- but bird flushed and went to my right, off to the west. I turned and shot at the bird, and at that second, saw Harry standing there. Didn't know he was there …"

In the same interview, Cheney took full blame: "... I'm the guy who pulled the trigger that fired the round that hit Harry. And you can talk about all of the other conditions that existed at the time, but that's the bottom line. And there's no -- it was not Harry's fault. You can't blame anybody else. I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend."

Is the White House livid at Cheney's handling of it all?

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