I thought that I would see how the Cheney shooting was playing on the right-wing blogs and to my surprise, they appear not to have gotten the White House memo "that the best way to deal with Vice President Dick Cheney's shooting accident is to joke about it."
Instead Michelle Malkin and Powerline are all bent out of shape at Washington Post writer Dana Milbank's appearance on Countdown with Keith Olbermann in full orange hunting regalia.
Powerline even reports that the Post's ombudsman has been contacted and there will be something in Sunday's paper. They omit to report the discussion that Milbank and Olbermann then had about the bizarre manner by which the news reached the public. Milbank reported that the Administration's global warming policy was going to be announced by a manicurist in Kansas to the Wichita Eagle-Beacon. (The Cheney story was revealed by private citizen Katherine Armstrong to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times a day after it occurred.)
After the discussion of the delayed news dissemination and the delayed police interview, Milbank offered that the story was probably nothing more than a diversion, like Jimmy Carter and the killer rabbit. But, Milbank did warn that there may be more to come:
OLBERMANN: And this becomes, whether he likes it or not, whatever else he does, this becomes the vice president's legacy?
MILBANK: Well, we've got two and a half more years of hunting trips.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
OLBERMANN: And will there be more hunting trips? I mean, would you actually go hunting with the vice president at this point, even dressed the way you are?
MILBANK: I understand that Pat Fitzgerald has been offered an invitation to the next one.
The orange attire is not what offends them. It is that Milbank and Olbermann have been pointing out the idiocy of the Administration on a nightly basis with a sense of humor, something John Hinderaker and Ms. Malkin apparently lack. Apparently no true Swiftboat fodder was available, so this had to do.
UPDATE: There are plenty of other winger links critical of Milbank if you use Trackback on Malkin's story. Why don't they get on this guy:
Even Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, a Republican and brother of the president, joked about the incident at a lunch yesterday. After placing a bright orange sticker on his chest he said, "I'm a little concerned that Dick Cheney is going to walk in."