A Daily News photographer captured the 3-by-5 foot Dixie flag affixed to a door in the garage of the Clove Valley Gun and Rod Club in upstate Union Vale, N.Y. "It's appalling for the VP to be at a private club displaying the flag of lynching, hate and murder," said the Rev. Al Sharpton. "It's the epitome of an insult." Sharpton demanded Cheney distance himself from the exclusive club where the Stars and Bars was flown, and said he might hold a prayer vigil there. Club officials threatened a reporter with arrest when he sought comment. The flag fiasco is especially upsetting because blacks have recently been subjected to an upsurge of racial threats, including nooses left in Jena, La., and Columbia University, he said.

"This is an outrage - he ought to leave immediately," Sharpton told The News. "He ought to apologize to the American people for being there in the first place." "That flag brings back painful memories of the old, old South," said Elouise Maxey, 59, president of the Northern Dutchess County branch of the NAACP. "I'm disappointed that he would go." Cheney spokeswoman Lee Anne McBride said Cheney did not know anything about the controversy. "The VP did not see the flag and neither did anyone on staff," said McBride.

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"As long as he doesn't shoot somebody in the a--," Bill Tryon, 48, said he was fine with Cheney's visit. Tryon lives in the area. There was no repeat of last year's snafu, when Cheney shot an old pal in the face during a quail hunt in south Texas. "It should be water under the bridge," said Ralph Mondello, who is running for a spot on the local town council.

Peter Banko, the hospital administrator at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial, said Harry Whittington had the heart attack early Tuesday while being evaluated.

He said there was an irregularity in the heartbeat caused by a birdshot pellet, and doctors performed a cardiac catheterization. Whittington expressed a desire to leave the hospital, but Banko said he would probably stay for another week. Whittington, a prominent Republican attorney from Austin, was accidentally sprayed with shotgun pellets when Cheney was aiming for a quail Saturday. Whittington had initially been placed in intensive care. He had been moved to a "step-down unit" Monday after doctors decided to leave several birdshot pellets lodged in his skin rather than try to remove them.

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The wildlife department issued a report Monday that found the main factor contributing to the accident was a "hunter's judgment factor." No other secondary factors were found to have played a role.

The shooting was first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. The vice president's office did not disclose the accident until nearly 24 hours after it happened. Armstrong said she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shoot at a covey of quail. Whittington shot a bird and went to look for it in the tall grass, while Cheney and the third hunter walked to another spot and discovered a second covey. Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong said. "The vice president didn't see him," she continued. "The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by god, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good."