Bush lends support to Cheney
WASHINGTON – President Bush said Thursday that he thinks Vice President Dick Cheney handled his weekend shooting incident “just fine,” and authorities in Texas declared the case closed.
Speaking publicly about the matter for the first time, Bush endorsed Cheney’s decision to wait about 18 hours before publicly acknowledging that he’d accidentally shot a hunting companion during a Saturday outing in South Texas. The president offered his views a few hours after the local Sheriff’s Department absolved Cheney of any wrongdoing.
An incident report released by the Kenedy County Sheriff’s Department accepted Cheney’s explanation that the shooting was an accident. The victim, attorney Harry Whittington, is expected to be released from a Texas hospital within days.
At the White House, Bush and his advisers sought to put the episode behind them by making the president available for questions for the first time since the shooting. Bush weighed in a day after Cheney broke his silence in a Wednesday interview with Fox News.
Bush said that the shooting was “deeply traumatic” for Cheney.
“I thought the vice president handled the issue just fine,” Bush told reporters during a photo session with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. “I’m satisfied with the explanation he gave.”
Bush also took issue with suggestions that Cheney’s decision to delay the release of any information about the shooting is indicative of a penchant for secrecy at the White House.
“I think people are making the wrong conclusion. … The vice president was involved in a terrible accident, and it profoundly affected him,” he said. “I saw the deep concern he had about a person who he wounded.”
In the incident report, Chief Deputy Gilberto San Miguel said he interviewed Cheney and Whittington, as well as the other members of Cheney’s hunting party.
He said Whittington corroborated Cheney’s explanation that the shooting was an accident that happened when Cheney shot at a quail, not realizing that the 78-year-old attorney was in the line of fire.
Whittington’s doctors said his condition continued to improve after suffering a mild shooting-related heart attack Tuesday.