Wanna know how to make Dick Cheney angry? Say something positive and affirming about his daughter, Mary.

It won’t make him angry if you merely criticize his daughter for being a lesbian, or if you try to strip gays and lesbians of equal rights.

For example, notice the Vice President’s reaction when Focus on the Family (a pro-Bush organization) issued the following statement:

“Mary Cheney’s pregnancy raises the question of what’s best for children. Just because it’s possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father doesn’t mean that it’s best for the child.”

Focus on the Family wasn’t merely making a general statement about gay rights. They were directly attacking Dick Cheney’s daughter. Out of line, don’t you think?

One might expect our preternaturally combative Vice President to respond to Focus on the Family’s focus on his family. But he did not. The Vice President said nothing. No public expression of outrage.

He didn’t even give the Bush allies over at Focus on the Family one of his trademark snarls.

Contrast this with his reaction when Wolf Blitzer asked the Vice President if he wanted to respond to these anti-gay critics. After prefacing his question with friendly and supportive comments about Mary, including “all of us are happy she’s going to have a baby,” Blitzer asked the Vice President if he wanted to respond to these attacks on his daughter.

Here’s the Vice President’s reaction. In Dick Cheney’s view, the offense is asking a question about his daughter, not the attack issued by the Administration’s anti-gay allies over at Focus on the Family: