Washington, DC--In a terse public statement, Vice-President Dick Cheney blamed his wife Lynne for failing to wake him up early when he assumed the duties of the presidency for just over two hours last Saturday.
Cheney was sworn in as President at 7:16 in the morning Eastern time just before President Bush was administered a mild anesthesia during a routing surgical procedure at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
"I reminded Lynne two or three times the night before to get me up early, but I guess she had other things on her mind. By the time I got up at around nine, most of my term was already over."
Cheney also admitted that he hoped to push a new tougher version of the Patriot Act through congress and assign some more high-profile military contracts to Haliburton during his brief presidential stint, but that he was unable to meet either goal during the "twelve minutes that I was actually conscious" before they transferred power back to President Bush.
"I told Lynne to lay off the cooking sherry the night before because I had a lot of things to do on Saturday," stated Cheney. "Yet somehow, she got it into her head that I needed to get a little extra sleep during the two most important hours of my goddamn life."