| Page 3 of 3 < |
After Cheney's Shooting Incident, Time to Unload
"The vice president spoke with Mrs. Katharine Armstrong," McClellan said, referring to the owner of the ranch where Cheney and Whittington were hunting. "And they agreed that she should make that information public. She was an eyewitness. She saw what occurred. And she called her local paper to provide those facts to the local paper."
Later McClellan was asked, "As press secretary, are you satisfied with the way this was handled?"
  (By Steven Hausler -- Hays (Kan.) Daily News Via Ap) 
VIDEO | Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said Monday that Bush and senior aides were told Saturday night that somebody in the Cheney's hunting party was shot, but he said he was not told until Sunday morning that Cheney was the shooter. (Video edited by washingtonpost.com's Jonathan Forsythe.) |
"Well," he replied, "I think you can always look back at these issues and look at how to do a better job."
After an indecipherable blur of shouted questions, Gregory's voice rose over those of his competitors.
"Let's just be clear here," Gregory said. "The vice president of the United States accidentally shoots a man, and he feels that it's appropriate for a ranch owner who witnessed this to tell the local Corpus Christi newspaper and not the White House press corps at large or notify the public in a national way?"
"Well, I think we all know that once it is made public, then it's going to be news and all of you are going to be seeking that information," McClellan replied.
Several questions followed, including three variations on "When did the president learn that the vice president had shot someone?"
In the course of the session, reporters made seven references to Cheney having "shot" someone, with four to a "shooting."
McClellan referred to the episode as an "accident." His shoulders relaxed noticeably when the questions turned, briefly, to Iranian nukes, riots over cartoons and Brownie.
