Two pictures emerge from your choice of words: One has barrels pointed out of windows and hunters leaping out while the vehicle is still in motion, blasting in every direction. The other is the vehicle being used as a means of conveyance from A to B while engaging in the sport of game hunting.
In the absence of hype, the latter is likely closer to the truth. This may fail to support the picture you desire, but if so, too bad. If you really don’t like it, then Mr. Cheney has already put it well.
No, I’m just relying on hard-line partisans to defend me blindly when I do my stupid things.
I think that’s a reference to the fact that the buckshot could have done permanent damage if they had hit him in the eye.
I admit, I’ve done plenty of stupid things. I once let my oil light blink for two days before I did anything about it. I microwaved a dish with a fork still on it. I can confidently say, though, that I have never shot anyone while aiming at a bird. I’m also pretty sure that it wouldn’t be explained away as “just one of those things” if I had.
Most people think endangering lives is a bad thing. OTOH, considering how many lives have been endangered because of the policies the VP endorses, I guess getting “peppered” by a little shot ranks rather low on the scale, doesn’t it?
I think it could’ve done permanent damage just by hitting him, but then what do I know? I think the oil light in a car should be a warning, not a sign that it’s too late to do anything about it. 
I don’t know, I’m not a hunter of fowl but from what I’ve heard it’s probably one of the more dangerous forms of hunting. Hunting accidents are uncommon in the U.S. by any means.
The person who explained it as “just one of those things” is some yokel that owns a ranch, I’m not sure why we’re introducing her comments as having any real importance. If I get in a car accident and total my car and almost kill someone I won’t consider it “just one of those things” but I also wouldn’t consider myself a dumbfuck over it.
Well, they were driving SUVs,
from Ford.
Consider the picture that is being painted by Cheney’s defenders: he’s out there hunting, being the very model of probity and safety in his technique and his gun handling, and this guy Whittington hurls himself iin front of Cheney as he fires, giving Cheney no chance to avoid shooting him.
Sounds pretty farfetched to me. A much more LIKELY explanation is that both Cheney and Whittington were to some extent culpable in the accident – Whittington did something stupid, but so did Cheney. In which case, the years’ long roasting Cheney is going to get over this is fully deserved.
I can accept this as a pitting of an unpopular Veep, he deserves it. I take exception to the anti-hunting, anti-Western, anti-gunsport tone to the discussion. Remarkably, not everyone lives the same way you (all) do. Some of us like living on a ‘ranch’(or ‘ranchette’) that does not make us a yokel.
Some of us like to hunt. That does not make us fools. Some of us like to shoot. That does not make us brutes. (Although other actions might.)
Besides, don’t these side issues dilute the pitting of the Veep?
(Still, I have to wonder what the Secret Service people did when this happened. It sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit.)
I’m sure it will be.
I’m not anti-hunting. What Cheney does isn’t hunting, however. It’s akin to fishing from a stocked pond. That’s hardly sportsmanlike. He has animals rounded up so he can shoot them. That rather defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?
Times do seem to have changed a bit. Used to be a politician can, in his past, have shot dead a little girl in a tragic gun accident, and not only did this not impede his nomination by a major party to run fro President (twice!) but no questions were ever asked about the incident at all.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, and it does remain an obscure incident, just Google the name “Ruth Merwin”.
Alert Secret Service agents grabbed the quail and wrestled it to the ground.
Oh, right, the parallels to Cheney’s shooting are downright amazing. :rolleyes:
Mr. Moto, for some reason coyly, refers to Adlai Stevenson.
I was coy about it because Ruth Merwin isn’t well known. And I think we all ought to remember why that is so.
It is so because politicizing what is essentially an accident used to be considered bad form. Yet lots of folks on these boards are doing just that.
I offer no excuse for what Cheney did, but I won’t join the pile-on, and I do hope I’d extend a similar courtesy to a Democrat in a similar fix.
I can’t believe the Democrats of 1952 and 1956 didn’t deny Stevenson the nomination because of an accident that occurred when he was 12 years old. Have they no decency? :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Do you know how old Stevenson was when that happened?
Did you know that Laura Bush once killed a guy? Have you heard much about that in the mainstream media?
Lighten up. This isn’t political. It’s not some forgotten accident from the past. A sitting Vice President shot some poor old coot with a shotgun. Come on…it’s FUNNY (well maybe not for the guy who got shot, but for everybody else).
What bothers me is how quickly the WH spin machine (after initially refusing to even verify that the incident had occurred at all) has now decided to totally blame the victim. “He got in the line of fire.” (No, Cheney wheeled and shot without looking). “He walked up behind them without telling them” (Give me a fucking break). “He’s not that hurt, he’ll heal up fine” (nice compassion, there fucko’s, He’s a fucking old man). I was perfectly willing to dismiss this as a comic accident, humorous but not evil. Nothing worth getting angry about. However, the callousness of the victim blaming and the unapologetic tone of Cheney’s mouthpieces shows us all once again that this administration lacks any human decency, humility or compassion.
Seeing as someone was shot, the parallels are certainly there.
Whether you’re twelve or 65, anyone handling a gun has the responsibility to handle it safely. Both of these incidents illustrate that.
Yeah, one would hope.