Excerpts From Interview

Fox is airing some excerpts from Brit Hume’s interview. I will update as they are broadcast…

Brit asked what caused the shooting.

Vice President Cheney replied:

Ultimately, I’m the guy who pulled the trigger. That fired the round that hit Harry. And you can talk about all of the other conditions that existed at the time. But that’s the bottom line. And there’s no, it’s not Harry’s fault. You can’t blame anybody else. I’m the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend. And I say that’s a moment I’ll never forget.

another excerpt:

Cheney:

…strong who’s a good mutual friend of both of us. Karl has hunted at the Armstrong as well.

Hume: Say that again.

Cheney: I said Karl has hunted at the Armstrong as well. And we’re both good friends of the Armstrongs and of Katherine Armstrong. Katherine suggested, and I agreed, that she would go make the announcement. That is that she put the story out. And I thought that made good sense for several reasons. First of all, she was an eyewitness. She’d seen the whole thing. Secondly, she’d grown up on the ranch, she’d hunted there all of her life. Third, she was the immediate past head of the Texas Wildlife and Parks Department, the game control division for the State of Texas. An acknowledged expert in all of this. And that she wanted to go to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, which is the local newspaper that covers that area, to a reporter she knew. And I thought that made good sense because you can get as accurate a story as possible from someone who knew and understood hunting. And then it would immediately go up to the wires and be posted on the website, which is the way it went out. And I thought that was the right call.

Hume: What do you think now?

Cheney: Well I still do. I still think that the accuracy was enormously important. I had no press person with me. I didn’t have any press people with me. I was there on a private weekend with friends on a private ranch.

and another:

Cheney: The image of him falling is something that I’ll never get out of my mind. I fired, and there’s Harry falling and it was, I must say, one of the worst days of my life at that moment.

Hume: Then what?

Cheney: Well, we went over to him, obviously, right away.

Hume: How far away from you was he?

Cheney: I’m guessing about thirty yards.

more:

Cheney: …struck on the right side of his face.

Hume: Right.

Cheney: His neck and upper torso on the right side of his body.

Hume: And I take it you missed the bird.

Cheney: I have no idea. You’re focused on the bird, but as soon as I fired and I saw Harry there, you know everything else went out of my mind. I don’t know whether the bird went down or didn’t.

Hume: So did you run over to him?

Cheney: I ran over to him and…

Hume: And what did you see? He’s lying there…

Cheney: He was laying there on his back, obviously. Bleeding. You could see where the shot had struck him. One of the fortunate things was that I’ve always got a medical team, in effect, covering me wherever I go. I had a physician’s assistant with me that day. Within a minute or two he was on the scene, administering first aid.

Hume: And Mr. Whittington was conscious? Unconscious? What?

Cheney: He was conscious.

Hume: What’d you say?

Cheney: Well, I said Harry, I had no idea you were there. And…

Hume: What’d he say?

Cheney: He didn’t respond.

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