Harry Whittington, the man who former Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot while they were hunting quail on a Texas ranch 17 years ago, has died. HarryWhittington DickCheney us kprc2 click2houston
Whittington died at his home Saturday in Austin, family friend Karl Rove said Monday.
Whittington and others were hunting with Cheney on the sprawling Armstrong Ranch in South Texas on Feb. 11, 2006, when Cheney, while aiming for a bird, struck Whittington, who was 78 at the time. The accident wasn’t publicly reported until the next day when the ranch owner called the local newspaper — the Corpus Christi Caller-Times — and told the paper what had happened.
The accident also spawned countless jokes. Jay Leno, then-host of “The Tonight Show” on NBC, quipped that Cheney would be capitalizing on the accident for the upcoming Valentine’s Day with a new cologne named “Duck.” Billionaire Bill Gates greeted his audience at a conference by saying,"I’m really glad to be here. My other invitation was to go quail hunting with Dick Cheney.”
“You can’t blame anybody else,” Cheney said. “I’m the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend.” In the 1980s, Republican Gov. Bill Clements appointed him to the former Texas Board of Corrections, which oversaw a state prison system a federal judge had declared unconstitutional because of brutal conditions.
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