News In Brief! Cheney Woozy After MTP, Failed To Continue Nazi Thread

Cheney Briefly Hospitalized After Television Appearance Yesterday

Vice President Complained Of Dizziness After Relentless Spin Session on ‘Meet The Press’

The White House confirmed this morning the Vice President Dick Cheney was briefly hospitalized yesterday, following his relentless spin session on NBC’s ‘Meet The Press’. The report would only say that Cheney complained of dizziness following his appearance.

An aide in the White House tipped off the staff that something may be wrong, when, near the end of the program, Cheney abruptly stopped spinning, when asked by Host Tim Russert “Do you think the President should pardon Scooter Libby?”

Cheney responded “I've said all I'm going to say on the subject, Tim” and rebuffed Russert with the same answer to follow-up questions around the leaking of CIA Agent Valerie Plame’s name.

Cheney was the sole guest on the weekly news program.

Sources tell The Garlic that, upon returning to the White House, Cheney went straight into the Oval Office “like it was his” and “flopped down” on one of the sofas. No one would confirm a rumor floating around the Capital that Cheney passed out.

“We’ve never seen him like this,” offered one White House aide. “Whenever he does the Sunday talk shows, and in particular the one with Fox News, he usually comes back here full of energy and wanting to get straight to work.”

With the Vice President’s history of heart trouble, the White House rushed Cheney to Walter Reed Hospital, where he was examined and released, approximately three-hours later.

Russert Plays Bulldog To Cheney’s Cyclone

On MTP, Cheney was forced into high-speed spinning after being grilled, uncharacteristically aggressively, by Host Tim Russert.

Following running a video clip of the Vice President from 2002, in which Cheney declared "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," Russert zeroed in, asking, with the knowledge that we have now that Saddam did not have WMD’s, would Cheney still make the move to invade Iraq.

“Yes,” said the Vice President. "The world is better off because Saddam Hussein is in jail instead of in power in Baghdad. It was the right thing to do and if we had it to do over again, we'd do exactly the same thing."

While not backing away from linking Iraq with Al Qaeda, Cheney reluctantly, but not fully, downplayed linking Iraq with September 11^th.

“There are, there are two totally different propositions here, and people have consistently tried to confuse them. And it's important, I think--there's a third proposition, as well, too, and that is Iraq's traditional position as a strong sponsor of terror.

So you've got Iraq and 9/11, no evidence that there's a connection. You've got Iraq and al-Qaeda, testimony from the director of CIA that there was indeed a relationship, Zarqawi in Baghdad, etc. Then the third...”

After being pressed by Russert, over the recently-released Senate Intelligence Committee report that stated there was no link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, or that Saddam was involved in the Sept. 11^th attacks, Cheney grunted that “I haven't seen the report; I haven't had a chance to read it ...”

And, if one his most deft and adroit spins of the day, after being question by Russert on one of his more enduring predictions, that the Iraq insurgency was “in it’s last throes”, the Vice President, without blinking, turned that around, praising the Iraqis for embracing democracy and being willing to "step up and take on the responsibility for their own fate."

Russert Threatened? Catches Heat From White House For Goading VP

Near the end of the program, sources say, the White House believes that Russert knew Cheney wasn’t feeling well from the amount of spinning he had to power up and intentionally attempted to get Cheney going again, when he brought up hunting, clearly referencing the incident last Fall when the Vice President accidentally shot his friend, and asked “Should I be relieved you didn't bring your shotgun in today?”

Cheney, half-joking, responded with “I wouldn't worry about it. You're not in season.”

NBC immediately ordered extra security for Russert, when the program was over and he was leaving the studio.

“I don’t think we’ve ever seen the Vice President be forced to spin as much as he did,” said Eddie Mars, editor of 'Please Shoot Me', the newsletter that tracks the Fox News Channel. “I had to TIVO the thing a few times ... I thought there were a few points where you could actually see traces of a eye cone forming around Cheney, there was so much spin.”

The White House made no comment on whether the Vice President would be keeping his scheduled appointments today but did give the Vice President mostly high marks for his appearance.

Sources say that President Bush was disappointed, in only that Cheney didn’t continue the thread of tying the War In Iraq and the Global Fight Against Terrorism to the rise of Hitler and the Nazis.

Transcript For Meet The Press - September 10^th with Dick Cheney


“Whenever he does the Sunday talk shows, and in particular the one with Fox News, he usually comes back here full of energy and wanting to get straight to work.”