Some Americans sorry Cheney survived attack

Some Americans sorry Cheney survived attack

Some Americans sorry Cheney survived
'You can never find a competent suicide bomber when you need one'

Some of Dick Cheney's many fierce enemies on the left were unable to withhold their glee today after the vice president escaped an apparent assassination attempt in Afghanistan.

Cheney was unharmed when a suicide bomber attacked the entrance to the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan where he spent the night, killing up to 23 people and wounding 20.

Readers of the Huffington Post, a popular blog run by pundit Arianna Huffington, responded to an Associated Press account of the attack with at least a dozen pages of vitriol before the thread of posts was shut down.

Comments posted to the site include:

* Better luck next time! (TDB)

* Dr Evil escapes again ... (truthtopower01)

* So Cheney is personally responsible for the deaths of 14 innocent people ... and then he waddles off to lunch!! What a ...... ! (fantanfanny)

* ..... can't the Taliban do anything right? They must know we would be so gratefull (sic) to them for such a remarkable achievement. (hankster2)

* Hey, Thalia, lighten up. I, for one, don't wish Cheny (sic) had been killed. I wish he had been horribly maimed and had to spend the rest of his life hooked to a respirator. Feel better now? (raisarooney)

* Let's see ... they're killing him over there so we don't have to kill him over here? (ncjohn)

* And they missed!? Oh, ... . Like Mamma used to say, I guess it's the thought that counts ... (Anachro1)

* You can never find a competent suicide bomber when you need one. (Mark701)

One contributor to the string of comments, "MNCurler," echoed many others, writing: "The posts advocating for Cheney's demise really show the class of the people who post here. No wonder you can't get a civil debate on this site- we are dealing with lunatic idiots."

The Taliban took responsibility for the attack at Bagram Airbase, declaring Cheney was the target.

The vice president's spokeswoman said he was unharmed and later met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul before leaving the country.

On the departing flight, Cheney told reporters the attack occurred while he was in his room at the base after bad weather forced postponement of his trip to Kabul, about 40 miles away.

"At 10 a.m. I heard a loud boom," Cheney said.

The vice president said Secret Service officials moved him briefly to a bomb shelter.

Cheney said changing plans and not going to Kabul was "never an option."

"They clearly try to find ways to question the authority of the central government," he said of the Taliban. "Striking at Bagram with a suicide bomber I suppose is one way to do that."

(article modified to remove foul language)