There’s something strange going on in the story about Vice President Dick Cheney shooting a 78-year-old lawyer in the neck and chest with a shotgun. The strangeness is in the many odd details about the story.

First, there are an awful lot of denials coming out. Although the lawyer, Harry Whittington, is a prominent Republican, an appointee of then-governor Bush, and contributed the maximum amount to Bush and Cheney in 2004, the point was made that Whittington was not Cheney’s guest and it was not known if Cheney had ever met him before.

Next, this kind of accident is being called “frequent, but not often,” as well as “going with the territory,” as if it were a quite normal and expected thing in quail hunting, and yet it was stressed that it was not Cheney’s fault. Whittington, instead, was blamed for coming up behind Cheney without announcing himself. Happens all the time and there’s nothing to it, and it was the other guy’s fault.

Update: after checking with hunters, Josh Marshall confirmed that what happened with Cheney is never the ‘other guy’s’ fault. The shooter must always be aware of where he is shooting, must always be cautious not to shoot in the direction of others. Cheney left a hunting partner behind, and then turned around 180 degrees and shot in that direction. His fault. But his chief advisor, the nutty lady I blogged on the other day, claimed that Cheney “was not careless or incautious or violate any of the [rules]. He didn’t do anything he wasn’t supposed to do.”

Still not sure? How about this from Texas’ own “Shooting Safety Rules“: Know your safe zone-of-fire and stick to it. — Your safe zone-of-fire is that area or direction in which you can safely fire a shot. It is “down range” at a shooting facility. In the field it is that mental image you draw in your mind with every step you take. Be sure you know where your companions are at all times. Never swing your gun or bow out of your safe zone-of-fire. Know the safe carries when there are persons to your sides, in front of, or behind you. If in doubt, never take a shot. When hunting, wear daylight fluorescent orange so you can be seen from a distance or in heavy cover.

Now Paul Begala, who knows quite a bit about hunting, chimes in.

Furthermore, although the wounds were described as being hardly anything worth noting, Whittington remains in the intensive care unit a full day after the shooting took place. This sounds just a little bit like it’s being played down.

Editor & Publisher asks some questions about all that. First, they point out that despite the explanation that such accidents occur “frequently,” only 30 or so shooting accidents happen in Texas each year, a state with one million hunters.

But chief among concerns is the fact that neither Cheney nor the White House reported the incident, nor did it seem like they intended to. Law enforcement was not notified. Almost a day went by before a local reporter with a strong relationship to the owner of the ranch where it happened picked up on the story. He then called Cheney’s office, which confirmed the story. Cheney’s office knew about it, but could not say that they had any plans to release the information on their own.

So how could it be that the vice president shoots a man and there is no intention to report it?

One thing is for certain: the late-night comedians will take this one to the bank. I’ve already heard one quip through family: “I won’t object to Cheney taking Scalia duck hunting anymore.” This mock story appeared already in The Huffington Post.

Update: More lame excuses. Scott McClellan is now handing out some new whoppers about why the White House held back the story. “McClellan insisted that the vice president’s and his staff’s overriding concern after the shooting was getting Whittington proper medical care.” Baloney. That would involve calling an ambulance and making sure the best doctor was called in, which would take no more than an hour, with plenty of time to call the White House. Hell, the secret service could take care of informing the White House while Cheney took care of his friend. In any case, why should such trouble be needed to assign “proper medical care” if the wound was so light as they claimed? Can’t have it both ways.

Another whopper: “The initial report that we received was that there had been a hunting accident. We didn’t know who all was involved, but a member of his party was involved in that hunting accident, and then additional details continued to come in overnight.” As if somehow one phone call of ten minutes from Cheney or one of his agents wouldn’t be enough to explain it all. One hour after the incident, everything should have been known and communicated. One whole day was hardly necessary, and it was clear that the White House had no intention of releasing this on their own.

Also interesting, but more a side point, is the identity of the man who was shot: Whittington was the man Bush appointed to be commissioner of Texas’ Funeral Service Commission in 1999. That was when Bush fired Eliza May for doing her job and going after fraud in the funeral home industry. Before May was in charge of the commission, cronyism and corruption were rampant in the industry. May was different, and had started investigating a firm called SCI, who were big Bush backers. They went to Bush’s chief of staff Joe Allbaugh (a Bush crony whom Bush later appointed to head FEMA before Michael Brown), and before May could finish her investigations, she was fired by Bush, who appointed Whittington, who then backed off the investigation.

Eliza filed a whistleblower lawsuit in which Bush was then subpoenaed; to get out of having to testify and likely perjure himself massively, Bush signed an affidavit under oath which swore that he never spoke with anyone involved in the case. It later surfaced that Bush had had two such conversations. Bush had lied under oath, an offense Republicans felt was impeachable when Clinton did it. But in Bush’s case, no one seemed to notice or care as Bush then ran for president.

As I said, not directly relevant to Cheney shooting the guy. But it is interesting how often one stumbles over connections to lawbreaking and corruption in Bush’s past–stuff people never heard about from the “liberal” media–whenever stuff like this comes up.