Background...
Since you don't get around the net as much as I do, you may not be aware that leftist blogs and other sources were PACKED with comments to the effect that it was a sad day indeed when Cheney walked away from that incident in one piece. I can give you links, if you want them. Huffington scrubbed most of their comments off.
In other words, if the idiot you ran across had been on the other end of the political spectrum, odds of him saying something like that in the past week would have been quite high.