Aug. '05 Briefing Warned, 'Cheney Determined To Shoot Old Man In Face'

[joeybee12]

White House Had Prior Knowledge Of Cheney Threat

WASHINGTON, DC—Government documents declassified today reveal that President Bush was briefed last summer of "a substantial risk" that Vice President Dick Cheney would shoot an elderly male in the face sometime in the next several months.

In a Presidential Daily Briefing given to Bush in August 2005, the CIA warned that the vice president was a potent threat to the senior population at large, and in particular "possessed the capabilities and intentions to spray a senior citizen with projectiles fired from a shotgun or other weapon." A second brief identified the population at risk as those "between 70 and 80 years of age," and warned that the vice president posed the greatest threat to "seniors in close proximity to the vice president when he is armed."

The brief, which urged the White House to take "the most thorough possible precautions to disable this threat to the faces, necks, and chests of the nation's elderly," was issued a full six months before the events of Feb. 11.

www.theonion.com

[kay1864]

1. I love The Onion, but a guy at Newsweek beat them to it...

Cheney Alert
By Andy Borowitz
Newsweek
Updated: 2:32 p.m. ET Feb. 13, 2006

Feb. 13, 2006 - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced today that his department would immediately implement a “Cheney Alert” system to warn Americans if an attack by the vice president is imminent.

The Department of Homeland Security has been under pressure to respond to the widespread panic and anxiety that have gripped the nation since Cheney shot and wounded a fellow quail hunter while on a hunting trip in Texas over the weekend.

Across the country, people have holed up in their homes and hoarded food and water, fearing another senseless attack by the gun-toting vice president.

“What we have learned, the hard way, is that Dick Cheney can attack without warning,” Chertoff said. “It is our hope that with this Cheney Alert system we will be able to give the American people some warning before he strikes again.”

The alert system, with five color-coded levels indicating the likelihood of another brutal pellet attack by the Vice President, was derided by some in Congress such as Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del), who likened it to “closing the barn door after the horses have escaped.”

“The fact is, the White House already had ample warning that Dick Cheney was going to strike, and they sat on their hands and did nothing,” Biden said, referring to a Presidential Daily Brief dated February 4 with the title, “Dick Cheney Determined to Strike in U.S.”

[joeybee12]

2. Uh-oh!

I'm sure The Onion didn't plagarize. The idea for such a story is obvious, I can see it originating two different ways independent of each other.

[kay1864]

3. Oh, I didn't mean to imply plagiarism...

As you say, kind of an obvious joke.

I was surprised though that The Onion didn't have it in last week's issue. I looked to see how they were going to treat it, and was disappointed to find that it wasn't mentioned.