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Cheney: 'You Can't Blame Anybody Else'
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-16 08:47
Vice President Dick Cheney took full blame Wednesday for shooting a hunting
companion, calling it "one of the worst days of my life," but he was defiantly
unapologetic about not publicly disclosing the accident until the next day.
"You can't blame anybody else," Cheney told Fox News Channel in his first
public comments since the accident on a private Texas ranch Saturday. "I'm the
guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend."
This photo provided
by the White House shows Vice President Dick Cheney, left, talking with
Brit Hume of Fox News in his office in the Eisenhower Executive Office
Building in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006.
[AP] |
Cheney said he had had a beer at lunch that day but nobody was drinking when
they went back out to hunt a couple hours later. Law enforcement officials have
ruled out alcohol as a factor.
The vice president has been under intense political pressure to speak out
about the accident, which has become a public relations embarrassment and
potential political liability for the White House. Senior advisers to President
Bush worried that Cheney's silence had suggested a possible cover-up, and Cheney
acknowledged that he delayed an announcement over the advice of Bush's press
advisers.
"We really didn't know until Sunday morning that Harry was probably going to
be OK, that it looked like there hadn't been any serious damage to any vital
organ," he said. "And that's when we began the process of notifying the
press."
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