March 30, 1981:

Haig, I'm in charge here, button.

Secretary of State Haig's declaration following the Reagan shooting was widely lampooned.

President Reagan is wounded in an assassination attempt outside a Washington hotel. The president receives a gunshot wound in his left lung. The would-be assassin, 25-year-old John Hinckley Jr., also critically wounds White House press secretary James Brady.

Hinckley also shoots and wounds Timothy McCarthy, a Secret Service agent who dived in front of President Reagan to take the bullet, and Thomas Delahanty, a D.C. police officer. (Thanks to reader Tom Goffe for including these two men.)

With Vice President George Bush on an Air Force jet headed to Washington from Texas, Secretary of State Alexander Haig holds an afternoon press briefing where he famously says, "As of now, I am in control here in the White House."

Today in Campaign History is a daily feature on Political Junkie.

categories: Today In Campaign History

10:51 - March 30, 2009

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