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 ... damn. (truthtopower01)

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

* Jesus Christ and General Jackson too, 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, Hell. 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)