Via Mediaite, an obligatory rejoinder to Cheney’s dig at her over the weekend. The reference to “misfiring” is, I trust, no accident.

The irony of this flap is that I’m not sure his dig was really aimed at her. Maybe I misunderstood but I didn’t take his comments to be a criticism of Palin the person or the politician, as is typically the case in “lamestream media” coverage. His point, I thought, was broader: If you have just two years of national or gubernatorial experience, then you’re not qualified to be VP. Full stop. I doubt he’d say that outright about Rubio or Christie or Kelly Ayotte, all of whom are in the same boat, as it’d be awkward for an elder statesman to be ruling out candidates who are still in the mix. My sense, though, is that he was trying to say that about them in a backhanded way by using Palin as an example. And why would he do that? Well, possibly because he’s rooting for Bush/Cheney alum Rob Portman. They’re old friends, I take it; Portman, in fact, was tapped to play the role of Joe Lieberman and John Edwards in mock debates with Cheney in 2000 and 2004. He has the most federal experience of all the shortlisters by a wide margin. By dismissing Palin as too green in 2008, Cheney’s framing the VP criteria to his advantage.

Don’t fret for Sarah, though. Given Ted Cruz’s and Deb Fischer’s big wins and the fact that no Republican pol in America is running on Bush’s record, she has more currency on the right than even DC does. Watch to the end to see her frame this, understandably, as an “establishment vs. populist” dispute.