I tried to search for the subject of my post on the SDMB, and came up with nothing.
We all know that Vice President Cheney accidentally shot his hunting companion, Harry Whittington, last Sunday. What would have happened to Harry Whittington if the situation was reversed, and he accidentally sprayed Dick Cheney with buckshot?
They would have had the funeral by now.
For whom, Whittington or Cheney?
Whittington. Those Secret Service guys can be jumpy. I wouldn’t be surprised if they opened fire on the guy just as a conditioned response.
In any event, there would be a serious investigation, as there should be. Given the circumstances of the shooting, and Whittington’s background, I’m sure he would eventually be cleared (unless Cheney was feeling vindictive). At worst, he’d get some misdemeanor and get off with time served (he’d be cooling his heels for a while during teh investigation, I’m sure).
Now if Cheney actually died. Whoa Nelly. Whittington would be screwed.
Something about this thread title caused images from the old Broderick Crawford movie All The King’s Men to flash before my eyes. A not-too-thinly-veiled story of Louisiana’s Huey Long in which Crawford’s character was shot by some guy and immediately the assassin was literally shot to pieces by Crawford’s body guards. Not much left to bury. I see the same sort of scene with perhaps better (and more numerous) ammo passing immediate justice along to the unfortunate Mr. Whittington.
Were Cheney not to recover from the wound, Oswald, Sirhan and all relatively well-known perpetrators of assassination attempts and successes would be moved to back pages while Whittington would become a name that everyone would want to change to something like Martin or Conroy. A name that would live in infamy.
“Whittington? Do you mean the traitorous radical Islamic homosexual terrorist liberal lawyer Whittington? The fellow with the rare congenital medical condition that results in totally spontaneous bruising, electrical burns, axphyxiation and heart failure? For reasons of Homeland Security, we cannot comment on his whereabouts at this time.”
Well, the old joke is that if Dick Cheney died, George Bush would become President.
But seriously, I think first that the possibility of Cheney being shot was much lower. This wasn’t the Secret Service’s finest moment, but they are trained to watch for shots being fired at their protectee not from him. So presumedly they were keeping a better eye of where Whittingham was aiming then they were on where Cheney was, and if they had seen Whittingham accidentally pointing his gun in Cheney’s direction rather than the reverse, they would have acted.
Of course, as we’ve seen, accidents can happen. But if Cheney had been shot, I’m sure everyone would have realized that it was an accident the same as they realize his shooting of Whittingham was. Obviously there would have been more news attention and there probably would have been some attempts to spin this into directing sympathy for Cheney’s personal condition towards his political goals, but overall it would have been the same story - one old guy accidentally shoots another old guy.
Lynne Armstrong would have had to ruefully inform Whittington later that night that she should probably get in touch with her friend at a Corpus Christi newspaper and describe what happened. Whit tells her to “do what you gotta do, babe.” NBC’s David Brown later demands of the increasingly agitated Whittington why he didn’t feel the need to notify the world at large that he accidentally shot the Vice President of the United States, who at that moment was laying in intensive care having his 12th heart attack in 38 minutes. Whittington promptly instructs Brown to go fuck himself.
There would be huge donations to Whittington defense fund? 
In the end, as much as I dislike Cheney it was just a hunting accident. We can mock Cheney, but I think we mostly know there won’t be any major legal action taken. I doubt if there would have been much more if Whittington had shot.
Jim
Yeah. David Brown. :smack: Make that David Gregory. Not that anybody’s gah damn listening. . .
Buckshot? Cheney would be dead if he was hit with the same pattern that the lawer was with the birdshot.