Lawyer Injured in Cheney Hunting Accident Considers Himself Lucky
The Texas lawyer who was shot by Vice President Dick Cheney in a hunting accident still has the hunting vest he was wearing and still has some of the pellets lodged within his body.
Harry Whittington showed the blood-spattered vest to a Washington Post reporter, saying he uses it as a prop to warn friends and children about the dangers of firearms.
“I was lucky,” Whittington, 82, tells the Washington Post. “I just feel like every day is a gift. Sometimes I wonder why I got these extra years.” He declines to criticize Cheney, and when asked if the former vice president ever apologized, Whittington pauses. “I’m not going to go into that,” he tells the Post.
Whittington has practiced law in downtown Austin since 1965, handling real estate matters, trusts and estates, and oil and gas leases, the story says. His family’s struggles during the Depression taught him to work hard, and his jobs financed his college and law school education. As he practiced law, he also acquired property.
The article describes Whittington this way: “Tall and lean as a cowhand, Whittington is a gracious and formal man. He sports a crisp suit and green tie over a light pink dress shirt monogrammed with his initials, ‘HMW.’ His office is a somber, wood-paneled affair lined with legal books and heavy curtains. An oil painting of Texas Hill Country dominates one end of the room. At the other end is Whittington’s massive desk, sans computer or other modern technology. Long a multimillionaire, he still comes to work five days a week.”
Whittington was active in GOP politics, but he was never close friend with Cheney. After his appointment to a state prison board, he exposed problems that included no-bid contracts, cronyism and prisoner abuses, the story recounts. He also helped in legal appeals for a developmentally disabled man on death row for a double murder; the inmate’s sentence was reduced to life in prison.
The post interviewed Scott McCown, a former state’s attorney who now runs the Center for Public Policy Priorities, who called Whittington “a patrician Republican” who “raised hell” on the prison board and speaks his mind. “And since he’s richer than God, he can afford to.” McCown said.
