Cheney gets his man, sort of...

Maybe the Darth Vader helmet needs its range finder re-calibrated? The Mandarin reads this in the press:

Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, his spokeswoman said Sunday.

Harry Whittington, 78, was "alert and doing fine" after Cheney sprayed Whittington with shotgun pellets on Saturday at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, said property owner Katharine Armstrong.

Armstrong said Cheney turned to shoot a bird and accidentally hit Whittington. She said Whittington was taken to Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital by ambulance.

Cheney's spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, said the vice president was with Whittington, a lawyer from Austin, Texas, and his wife at the hospital on Sunday afternoon.


The Mandarin wonders if Cheney (a/k/a Lord Dark Helmet) might be regretting those five consecutive Vietnam War draft deferments he used to stay out of the Army. The Mandarin recalls clearly from his own days learning how to shoot the M-16 in Basic Training that killing your man with the first shot is a key success factor in military marksmanship. But I guess a face full of bird shot is better than nothing. Or did someone simply give Cheney some faulty inteligence about the target's location?