h/t: Michelle Malkin

Boy the left is going to have a field day with this one. They already believe that he's this evil anti-Christ character (even though many are atheists the rest of the time), but now he shot a guy? They're going to go nuts. I'm not sure I agree with Michelle on this one though. I think only the late shows and lefty bloggers will touch this one and it won't get blown up in to something it's not. While the public generally buy in to liberal media spin, I don't think they're stupid enough to think that this means anything about who Cheney is.

The article Michelle is linking to doesn't go in to much detail however. Of course a shooting is always a "big deal", but from the AP article I found at Yahoo! News, makes it sound like much less of a "big deal" than one would at first think:

(read entire article, only partial excerpt below)

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."

Whittington has been a private practice attorney in Austin since 1950 and has long been active in Texas Republican politics. He's been appointed to several state boards, including when then-Gov. George W. Bush named him to the Texas Funeral Service Commission.

more...

"It broke the skin," she said of the shotgun pellets. "It knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn't get in his eyes or anything like that."

"Fortunately, the vice president has got a lot of medical people around him and so they were right there and probably more cautious than we would have been," she said. "The vice president has got an ambulance on call, so the ambulance came."

Cheney is an avid hunter who makes annual hunting trips to South Dakota to hunt pheasants. He also travels frequently to Arkansas to hunt ducks.

Armstrong said Cheney is a longtime friend who comes to the ranch to hunt about once a year and is "a very safe sportsman." She said Whittington is a regular, too, but she thought it was the first time the two men hunted together.

"This is something that happens from time to time. You now, I've been peppered pretty well myself," said Armstrong.

At least Whittington tis diong well. We'll have to wait and see the media and left's reactions this week. Again, I don't know if I agree with Michelle about the left's ability to smear Cheney with this. Sure the far left groups will try to make some noise about it, but I don't think it will play. What are they going to do, try to convince the public that he tried to kill some guy? Or that he's not a good hunter? I don't know, I guess we'll soon find out.