Cheney Partied On, After Sending Whittington to the ICU --->>>

[Stephanie]

So Dick has lunch and "a beer" around 1:00, presumably, counting back from the 3:00 resumption of the hunt...

Cheney: Correct. We'd taken a break at lunch -- go down under an old -- ancient oak tree there on the place, and have a barbecue. I had a beer at lunch. After lunch we take a break, go back to ranch headquarters. Then we took about an hourlong tour of the ranch, with a ranch hand driving the vehicle, looking at game. We didn't go back into the field to hunt quail until about, oh, sometime after 3:00 p.m.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/15/cheney.transcript/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Then he shoots the guy around 5:30-ish...

Armstrong said someone in the security detail called the ambulance, which arrived 20 or 30 minutes later.

After the ambulance left "in a cloud of dust," she drove Cheney to the ranch house, staying in touch with family members who followed Whittington to the hospital and getting updates that he would be OK.

http://www.ksat.com/news/7043932/detail.html?rss=ant&psp=news

But does not accompany him to the hospital. Instead he goes back to the ranch house and pours himself a cocktail...

Armstrong, a longtime friend of the Cheney family, told CNN before the vice president's interview that she never saw Cheney or Whittington "drink at all on the day of the shooting until after the accident occurred, when the vice president fixed himself a cocktail back at the house."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/15/cheney/index.html

Then sits down to dinner with the other house-party guests...

Afterward, she said, her brother-in-law and another guest went to the hospital to check on Mr. Whittington. The rest of the party had dinner, and Mr. Cheney, who had flown to Texas on Friday night, departed on Sunday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/politics/13cheney.html

He was very worried, but he went to bed early anyway...

Back at the ranch, the group ate dinner and went to bed by 10 p.m. She described Cheney's demeanor as "very worried" about Whittington.

http://www.ksat.com/news/7043932/detail.html?rss=ant&psp=news

In the morning they called the local newspaper, but did not cancel the quail lunch party, with guests from the neighboring ranch...

Armstrong contacted the Corpus Christi Caller-Times around 9 a.m. Central time on Sunday. Asked why the information was not disseminated on Saturday night, immediately after the accident, Armstrong said: "The last thing that was on our mind was the media. We were thinking about Harry."

***

The manager of a ranch in neighboring Brooks County attended a quail lunch at the Armstrong Ranch headquarters midday Sunday with Cheney. Lavoyger Durham, manager of El Tule Ranch, said the luncheon talk was of "North Korea, India, China, Taiwan."

There was no discussion about the accident the night before, he said, but it became known at the luncheon that Cheney asked to have the morning hunt canceled. "He didn't want to shoot," Durham said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/13/AR2006021300452_2.html

Finally, on Sunday afternoon, Cheney pays a visit to the "friend" he has put in the ICU. He claims it was shortly after noon. Must have been quite an early lunch...

Q: By the next morning, had you spoken again to Mr. Whittington?

A: The next morning I talked to his wife. And then I went to the hospital in Corpus Christi and visited with him.

Q: When was that?

A: Oh, it was shortly after noon on Sunday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060216/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cheney_interview_text_1

Party Hearty, Big Dick! Don't let shooting a man and sending him to the ICU stop you from enjoying yourself!