by James Glaser
February 16, 2006

So, I was watching CNN this morning, and they were making an attempt to show what Dick Cheney shot Harry Whittington, with. Poor Harry, in some stories about the incident Harry is referred to as "The 78 year old lawyer shot by Vice President Dick Cheney."

Well the 78 year old lawyer, we now find out, wasn't just shot in the face, neck, and chest by Dick, he was also shot in the heart. Shooting someone in the heart seems to me to be a BIG part of the story, but the media and the hospital didn't think so. We didn't need to know that information, until Harry suffered a heart attack... because he was shot in the heart. (I'm not buying the feel good story of the BB floating into Harry's heart after Harry got to the hospital. That sounds nice and takes Dick of the hook for shooting him in the heart, but if Dick didn't shoot Harry, Harry wouldn't have a BB in his heart.)

Back to the CNN story. First off they show us what a 12 gauge shotgun shell looks like and what "Double OO Buck" shot looks like. Then they say, but that is not what the Vice President was using. They then take out a 28 gauge shell that is open with all the little BBs in a dish and they include a couple of the Double OO Buck shot with the little BBS so it looks like they are even smaller.

They kept on explaining, if Harry was 30 yards away when he was shot, the shot pattern would have opened up, and he wouldn't have been hit with the whole load. That is true, but we don't know how far away Harry was, some reports say 30 feet and others say 30 yards. Who knows? The hospital talks about 200 BBs hitting him, so 30 yards sounds too far.

Right after CNN's show-and-tell demonstration, the hospital reported that there will be no more updates on Harry Whittington at the request of his family. Some day in a month or so, don't be surprised to read, "Unidentified Man Killed in Texas Hunting Accident."

To Dick Cheney's credit, he told FOX News, "I'm the guy who pulled the trigger that fired the round that hit Harry. The image of him falling is something I will never get out of my mind. It was one of the worst days of my life."

Just maybe if Dick Cheney had gone to war, like the hundreds of thousands of young Americans he has sent off to fight for him, he would have known how dangerous a shotgun can be. Maybe he would now understand why so many veterans have a hard time with their war experiences. Dick just had to stand there and watch his friend bleed while his traveling medical staff did first aid.

Maybe Dick wouldn't have been drinking beer for lunch as the owner of the property they were hunting on, Katherine Armstrong, has stated. Most hunters, about 99% of them, save the alcohol for after the hunt. Drinking and guns do not mix. Dick's drinking may explain why the Secret Service would not allow local law enforcement officials to interview the Vice President until the day after the shooting or maybe the Vice President just felt that "local" law enforcement was so far below his station that he wasn't going to follow what you and I would have had to. The police come to my door and want to ask questions, you know I am not about to put them off until the next day. In the real world, it doesn't work that way, but in the world of our leaders in Washington things are different.

Dick Cheney learned a lot about guns and safety this past weekend, and the American people learned a lot about one of their leaders.

PARTING SHOT: Fox News is still trying to put the blame on Harry Whittington for his getting shot by Dick Cheney. They keep going back to the story that Harry didn't tell Dick that he was behind him. I think they wanted him to yell out, "Dick, Dick, don't shoot me! "FAIR and BALANCED?"

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