New Viral Focus After Shooting: Cheryl Hines' Exit

On Monday, "salad man" became an unusual fixture of coverage after the shooting at the White House correspondents' dinner. Now, actress Cheryl Hines, wife of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy, is similarly in the headlines. The reason? Viral image of Secret Service agents whisking her husband to safety as Hines seemingly struggles to keep up. (See one clip here.) "I cannot stop thinking about Cheryl Hines at the correspondents' dinner," is the headline of a column by Monica Hesse at the Washington Post. "Cheryl, in a strapless cocktail dress, was left to hobble after them." Hesse, however, cuts Kennedy some slack in the moment. "Law enforcement was moving Kennedy so forcefully that perhaps he couldn't have turned back for Hines even if he'd tried."

Much less forgiving is Jon Stewart, who excoriated Kennedy and the agents who helped him on the Daily Show, per Mediaite. "Do you see right there?" he asks while freezing a video clip. "There's a group of men carrying another man out of the room, and then there's a woman. A woman who appears to be… desperately reaching out for someone to care, [someone] to help her. That's a woman reaching up in agony and fear. That's RFK Jr's wife. How f---ed up is that scene?" Stewart then contrasts Kennedy with Stephen Miller, seen protecting his pregnant wife as he ushers her from the chaos.

For the record, Hines posted on Instagram about the shooting the same night and praised the security detail for helping her, perhaps when the cameras weren't on them. "So we were there, and we heard shots, everybody got under the tables, nobody knew what was going on, and then Bobby's security detail surrounded us, and took us, had to lift me over chairs, because I'm in heels, and a gown," she wrote, per the New York Post. Hesse, meanwhile, sees a larger point in all this:

• "We are all Cheryl Hines. Unprepared for the scenario in which we will be forced to run for our lives. Watching the important people be whisked away while we wonder whether we should try to follow them, or duck under a table, or grab the good wine. This country is exhausting and perverse. We should have worn different shoes."