Cheney Has Mental Breakdown (satire)

A White House spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, has revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney has been removed from office and is now being treated at Bethseda Naval Hospital, Maryland after he suffered complete breakdown of his sanity.

The official told reporters:

It's really sad. Mr. Cheney was found in the small hours by Secret Service agents, having suffered a serious mental breakdown. He was dressed only in a black raincloak and his underwear, running down corridors and smashing lightbulbs while shouting "Another 5 billion for Halliburton!" He appeared to believe he was a stealth bomber attacking power stations in Nor...Ira...an unnamed country.

White House insiders confirmed that aides had been keeping a close eye on the Vice President lately, as evidence of a massive delusional complex kept piling up. Just recently, Mr. Cheney had seemed to lose all grip on reality and had made several pronouncements which were regarded as "over the edge" even by the White House Press Office, known for their informal motto - "spin that would make a dervish's nose bleed".

Just last night, the growing evidence came to a head as Mr. Cheney ,

Told Larry King that "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." as reports came in of major insurgency resistance to the Iraqi governments desperate security cordon in Baghdad, which has thrown a sizeable percentage of the available Iraqi manpower into keeping order around the "green zone". Elsewhere, news broke that competing militias have almost total control of the major city of Basra and US forces seized, abused and looted the home of a prominent moderate Sunni politician in violation of Iraq's sovereignty.

Told Larry King (again) that he was "offended" by recent human rights allegations made by Amnesty International. "For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously," he said. Then showed perhaps his most extreme symptom of his delusional breakdown to date:

"Guantanamo's been operated, I think, in a very sane and sound fashion by the U.S. military. ... I think these people have been well treated, treated humanely and decently, occasionally there are allegations of mistreatment.

This comes as even the most hard-core rightwing pundits are no longer questioning whether tortures and murders have taken place at Gitmo and other US detention facilities, but rather whether they care. Meanwhile, new reports of torture surface after an Associated Press lawsuit forces the military to hand over 1,000 pages of documents relating to testimony made during kangar... tribunals at Guantanamo Bay.

Lastly, and perhaps most telling of all, Mr Cheney went on record Monday as saying that First lady Laura Bush would defeat Hillary Clinton if the two were to face each other in the 2008 presidential contest.

The White House psychiatrist, Dr. D.S. Turbid, on retainer to staff ever since the President's "mission accomplished" delusional episode, confirmed the report. "Vice President Cheney may be beyond recovery. He is, in technical parlance, a fruitcake."

"In the short term, Mr. Cheney's duties will be covered by an animatronic double created by Disney Studios, "said Scott Mc...the anonymous source. "Don't worry, you won't notice the difference - you never did with Ronnie Reagan."