Cheney denies responsibility

Little Dick Cheney

Last week, the New York Times, swiftly followed by other news outlets reported that US Vice President Dick Cheney “Takes Full Responsibility” for accidentally shooting fellow hunter Harry Whittington. This martyraic statement allegedly came from a Fox News interview with Cheney by top Fox dog Brit Hume.

While the news conglomerates kept using the phrase “full responsibility” the FoxNews.com transcript of the interview shows that Dick never used any form of the word “responsibility.” Further investigations shows Cheney also didn’t use the words “Takes”or “Full”. And in fact, has no capacity for responsibility of any kind, positive or negative.

Bayesian statistical analysis of the interview found that the vice president didn’t actually discuss the shooting at all. He didn’t even mention hunting, of quails or otherwise. In fact, during a short phone call with a member of the FoxNews team he revealed that Dick Cheney only agreed to the interview on the condition that he didn’t need to speak at all.

A later phone call with Brit Hume himself confirmed that not only did Fox News never actually interview Dick Cheney, there is no Dick Cheney. The post of “US Vice President” has historically only been symbolic.

Asked about the non-existence of Mr. Cheney, President George W. Bush said “no comment”.

Related resources

• Znet: Cheney’s Dodge
• FoxNews.com: Cheney interview transcript