It was a question from CNN’s Ed Henry, asking Gibbs to respond to the criticism Cheney had leveled at the Obama administration during a CNN interview yesterday, that prompted Gibbs’ jibe.  View the video and you’ll see Gibbs pause before responding.  This was a shot taken done with malice aforethought.

GIBBS: I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy, so they trotted out the next most popular member of the Republican cabal.

In the background, you can hear a range of amused reactions from the press corps, from tittering to some loud and repeated guffaws.  Let’s consider: Dick Cheney offered some tough, but altogether serious criticism of the Obama administration.  In response, the Obama admin depicts the former Vice-President of the United States as a second-rate member of a “cabal.”  And at least some in the press find it appropriate to laugh out loud.

Update: On this afternoon’s Hardball, Pat Buchanan had this to say: “I think Gibbs is a good fellow but I think that was very demeaning, I think it was disgraceful from the podium in the White House to be speaking about a former Vice-President in that kind of cheap manner.”

Writes Jennifer Rubin at Contentions:

“Gibbs can’t manage to get through a simple line of questioning by Jake Tapper. But insults, ad hominem attacks, and snotty one-liners are all in fashion. This is an administration of many firsts. We have had some noteworthy (good and bad) press secretaries over various administrations, but we have never had one who was quite in Gibbs’s league.”