It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Has a Heart Attack

When Cheney heard the words "heart attack" yesterday, I'm told he grabbed his Pocket Defibrillator&trade and delivered a few volts to his own chest in a pavlovian response to the phrase. He was then relieved to find out it wasn't he who was having the heart attack, but his own best bud/target practice victim. Then he got a little nervous to discover that if the guy dies, he could actually be in a spot of trouble.

And it's interesting - yesterday morning, the White House was all laugh riot about the accident, but changed their tone once they found out that the object of Cheney's blast was back in the ICU. Oddly enough, I can't seem to find a transcript of the morning briefing, but there's this:

Q: Back to the Saturday activities, understanding that the Vice President and his entourage's primary concern was Mr. Whittington's health, and remains so, last night the late-night comics went to town; this morning you joked about orange and the Longhorns being here. To what extent is there a certain degree of relief that Mr. Whittington seems to be fine, but a bit of, perhaps, humor involved --

So, Scotty was having some fun with it, and he even had a Texas tie on to boot – and not a bola tie! But at this press conference, the administration knows (we don't) that Birdshot Collector took a turn for the worse. Scotty seems a touch more dour:

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think Mr. Whittington remains in our thoughts and prayers. We all want to make sure that he's okay and that he gets home and he recovers fully. And that's where our focus is and that's where it will continue to be. And I think people have to make their own judgments in terms of how they go about that.

Good call. It's not as funny anymore.

No. It's still funny. Especially funny if Deadeye Dick gets hauled before a grand jury. (Settle down! Millionaire friend of Dick Cheney, remember?)