Centerfield

I saw 5:30 not 6:30 in all previous blogs.

Is this newer info?

Good point, the smoking gun has a report saying 5:30. New information or a typo? Either way, I was checking tonight as the sun went down. By 5:30 it was to dark to hunt.

To answer the obvious question with an obvious answer: If this man dies (God forbid), this gets reeeeally bad, reeeeally quick.

Can you say...Vice President McCain?

I often start home at 6:30 here in Central Texas. The last few times, it's just been dusk. I was kind a glad to see the return of daylight on my commute home. Nightfall showed up 6:45-7:00.

It probably would've been safe to shoot at 6:30.

actually, it probably happens more than you know.
Unfortunately, I smell politicism again

The press report is probably adjusted for time zones.

if whittington dies (or ends up in a long coma) there will be an uproar to get rid of cheney...and I bet it will be with Rumsfeld or McCain. I agree with the mccain idea because then the Reps could claim a "fresh start" but they could anyway.

I dug out my GPS. It's got a neat tool for sunrise/sunset all over the globe.
For Corpus Christi sunset is 6:18 pm and in Kingsville its 6:21pm. So if the 5:30 time is right it would have still been light

That's true, Rachel. Besides, it would give McCain a head start for 'O8.

Of course, we're all hoping Mr. W makes a full recovery.

Bob, go back and read the very first line of the article you cite, before even the date: "A timeline of events following Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting accident, all times EST".

P.S. Personally, I find it rather disrespectful to refer to decent, honorable individuals who are experiencing dangerous medical problems as "this guy," especially while engaging in rampant politically motivated speculation of what will happen if he dies. As Lazarus Long said: "There is no conclusive evidence of life after death. But there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know. So why fret about it?" At this point, all the evidence points to Mr. Whittington having suffered a very minor heart attack, from which doctors expect him to make a full recovery. Why start morbid speculation?

Good eye, Pat. This article needs an update with the "That's insane! Sunset this time of year in the south is 5:30 pm. What kind of person does a 180 in the darkness and blasts away? This is not normal behavior" part annotated with the correct time zone information and the correct time for sunset.

I'm still having a problem with the blame the victim talk coming out. Scotty said something like Whittington didn't follow hunting protocol.

The only hunting protocol I know of is don't shoot people.

If you shoot someone, it is your fault-period, don't even think about trying to weasle out of it.

In fact, I believe if 30 minutes after it happened Dick had gone on TV and said how sorry he was, and it was all his fault, this story would have been over on Sunday.

Do you actually hunt, Rob? Ever been on a quail hunt? Are you familiar with the customs and habits generally followed by cautios quail hunters? How is describing precisely what happened "blaming the victim"? What is this insane obsession with "blame" and "fault"?

I agree with Pat. Furthermore, I think it is a bit overboard to be discussing "what if" scenarios. This is a man with a family for crying out loud.

By the way, Bob, your timeline article also corrects the earlier story you cited about the deputies who went out to the ranch Saturday night, noting that they were not seeking to interview the Vice President. According to the article, those deputies went out there on their own initiative simply in response to hearing that an amublance had been sent out. Notice that it took them 2 hours after the ambulance dispatch to make it out there. I think that shows about how seriously they took such an accident. The earlier story about the deputies seeking to interview Cheney was based on earlier statements by the Secret Service that it later corrected.

Why start morbid speculation?

Because some folks salivate at the thought of anything that can be used against anyone in the administration. In any fashion, at any time.

The only hunting protocol I know of is don't shoot people.

Which shows you don't know very much about hunting. Right up there on the list for upland is not sneaking up on covey points unannounced. It follows along with not jumping out into speeding traffic, even if pedestrians DO have right of way.

As the shooter, Cheney is of course at fault. As a dumbass who violated the most basic rules of upland hunting, Whittington contributed greatly to the accident that injured him. Had either one of them NOT screwed up and violated the basic protocols, it wouldn't have happened. Primary liability naturally resides with Cheney, but Whittington's errors are mitigating factors.

The sun was still up when the shot was fired. The accounts I've seen said that Cheney was swinging around towards the sun when he fired--which is exactly when he should have just let the bird go. He may never have seen Whittington at all, even without the sun. Whittington was in brush. But he fired at a low flyer back in the direction where people could be, without full visibility, at the end of a long day, when he was tired. Classic end-of-day errors by both of them, and a prime reason I knock off before the sun dips that low. (And don't get me started again on "road hunting.")

Red Foreman Lesson--don't be a dumbass.

Frankly, I have been uncomfortable with the jokes from the start because "this guy" was in ICU with no guarantee of anything. Still, I have to admit the Daily Show last night was unbelieveably funny.

Tully, that reminds me. I had a roommate my freshman year at college. We lived in the dorms on a large campus which was officially a "pedestrian" campus, though it has plenty of streets full of faculty, staff, and student traffic going through them all the time. Technically, pedestrians always had the right of way at crosswalks.

This Darwin award candidate would deliberately wait until moments before the car arrived to dash across the street. When I would tell him how stupid he was, he would tell me very pointedly how he had the right of way, and if anybody hit him, he'd sue.

I told him I was sure his parents would enjoy some nice vacations with his lawsuit money while he spent the next 40 years carefully looked after in a "happy place".

As far as the jokes, he was not always in the ICU. Heck, the administration had given the idea that he was going to be just fine. I had no problem with the jokes at that point. I have no seen too many after news broke of the heart attack.

Now, as far as a what if. I am not familiar with what usually happens with hunting accidents in Texas. My guess is that Mr. Cheney so fall under the same laws as any other fatal hunting accident. I just have no idea how Texas handles those. If Mr. Whittington does die, no matter whose fault, I think it would be proper for Mr. Cheney to step down.

I have always had a problem with all this secrecy around Mr. Cheney anyways. He is in a high profile public position. If he doesn't like the spotlight, leave the job. I am somewhat unsympathetic in that regard. No one is forced to be Vice President.

Well, I certainly did miss the EST.
I think I understand why they did that. The reporter was concerned with reporter type events, like what was going on in the white house. So he merged the event timelines from two different time zones.

As for the limits of good tastes and decorum, everyone might try reading about the last vice presidential shooting incident. Especially the part about a personal smear campaign believed to have been orchestrated by his own party rivals .

But I think the Right might have been the first to make light of the issue, in order to spin it to their advantage. Even before I had heard about this episode on the news (and, admittedly, I'm off-cycle from the rest of you), I was seeing bumper stickers from Michelle Malkin that said:

I'd Rather Hunt With Dick Cheney / Than Ride With Ted Kennedy

I didn't think it was the least bit appropriate once I found out what the story was about.

I agree with you on that last point, Bobby. I am laughing at the Cheney jokes and found them fine when it appeared that Whittington did not suffer serious injuries. By the time you saw them, you may have been learning about his heart attack and stint in ICU at the same time you were seeing the initial reports, which would indeed put the jokes in a whole new light.

But you are absolutely correct that the way the right continuously lampoons Kennedy is disrespectful to the memory of Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy deserves to be lampooned for many reasons, and has no credibility on matters of personal ethics because of Chappaquiddick and many other reasons, but the death of an innocent human being should not be so cavalierly tossed about as political fodder.

*snicker* Sometimes I think that there's a glass case in the GOP side of the building, a case lapeled "CHAPPAQUIDDICK" in big letters with the insructions "In case of emergency, break glass".

Everyone has made jokes about the Big C, even SNL. Of course, that was in 1980, in a funny sketch with Jane Curtain as Joan Kennedy, and Bill Murray as Ted. That was..oh...about 26 years ago. You'd think Malkin could have found some new ideas by now, but no.

If I was feeling really ornery, I would suggest some new slogans for Malkin, like "It's safer to be Cheney's hunting companion than Laura Bush's old boyfriend. Or a fresher topic; "It's safer to be Cheney's hunting companion than Joe Scarborough's intern."

But I'm feeling pretty mellow right now, so I won't.

Need to corrcect this post. The timeline indicagtes times are in EST, that puts the shooting at 5:30. Weather.com puts sunset at roughly 6:10. Still pretty late in the day but this takes away criminal negligence.