Harry Whittington: Shot by a vice president

Harry Whittington never did get an apology from Dick Cheney, said Paul Farhi in The Washington Post. It’s been almost five years since the former vice president shot Whittington while quail hunting on a friend’s South Texas Ranch. “All I remember is the smell of burning powder,” says Whittington of the incident. “And then I passed out.”

He woke in a hospital in Corpus Christi to find his face, neck, and chest swollen and peppered with birdshot. Immediately, Cheney’s friends and the White House pinned the blame on Whittington, saying he’d stepped into the vice president’s line of fire. Whittington apologized to “Mr. Cheney and his family” for all the adverse attention caused by the shooting; Cheney, who never contacted him directly, publicly conceded that he’d “pulled the trigger,” but he never apologized.

Though the media characterized Whittington and Cheney as “old friends,” Whittington says they barely knew each other. Today, the 82-year-old Texas lawyer still has about 30 pieces of birdshot lodged in his eye socket, forehead, hand, and larynx—which makes his voice shaky—and near his heart. Still, he reckons himself lucky to have survived. “Sometimes I wonder why I got all these extra years,” he says.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up