And by god, Harry was in the line of fire (w/updates & additions)

Update: Here's an item from two or three years ago that may shed some light on just what kind of a "sportsman" Cheney is.

Monday's hunting trip to Pennsylvania by Vice President Dick Cheney in which he reportedly shot more than 70 stocked pheasants and an unknown number of mallard ducks at an exclusive private club places a spotlight on an increasingly popular and deplorable form of hunting, in which birds are pen-reared and released to be shot in large numbers by patrons. The ethics of these hunts are called into question by rank-and-file sportsmen, who hunt animals in their native habitat and do not shoot confined or pen-raised animals that cannot escape.

That's digusting. (Empahasis mine.)

Update again: Firedoglake is all over this. One of the ladies who write it ("ReddHedd") and more of those who read it than I would have thought have some experience hunting. Redd writes:

A 28-gauge shotgun is a fairly specialized firearm. My dad called it a "ladies gun" when I learned to shoot as a kid -- it was the first gun I ever took out for target practice at the quarry. It shoots a fairly small pattern, compared to the spread you get from a 12-gauge, say, so the buckshot comes out in a fairly concentrated pattern, and there is little to no recoil -- which means you don't get that smack into your shoulder when the gun rebounds from the pressure of the shot like you would with a higher-gauge (stronger) shot. At least, that's what I remembered (it's been a while since I was a kid and went target shooting with my dad), so I did a little research and...yep, I remembered correctly.

She also notes something interesting about statements made by Katharine Armstrong,owner of the ranch where the shooting took place.

"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."

Well, this explains why Ms. Armstrong has been silenced now by the Cheney PR team -- nothing like reminding the public that Cheney has an ambulance always on call, is there?

Original post: Dick Cheney shot a man. And though I'd love to be able to add the words "in Reno, just to watch him die," it was, reportedly, an accident. Maybe. Via AmericaBlog:

Harry Whittington, 78, was "alert and doing fine" after Cheney sprayed him with shotgun pellets on Saturday while the two were hunting at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, said property owner Katharine Armstrong.
...
Whittington was in stable condition Sunday, said Yvonne Wheeler, spokeswoman for the Christus Spohn Health System.
...
"The vice president didn't see him," she continued. "The covey flushed and the vice president 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."

He's the NRA.
(Picture via IronCity)

ETA and one more for the road: Mark Evanier, who's spent the weekend in the hospital due to a leg ailment (get well soon, Mark) has a final commentary.