Lynne Cheney jokes, Sometimes Dick will 'bite the head off a live chicken' Mike Aivaz and Nick Juliano

Published: Thursday October 11, 2007



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Print This Email This Hardly a day goes by without Jon Stewart taking a dig at Vice President Dick Cheney, portrayed as the nation's No. 1 supervillain. With a new book to hawk, the vice president's wife, Lynnee Cheney, stepped into treacherous territory, with an appearance on The Daily Show Wednesday. An interview that had plenty of potential to turn awkward began with a light touch from the vice president's wife, as she presented Stewart with a Darth Vader doll, a sly wink at Hillary Clinton and others who have compared Cheney to the Star Wars villain. Stewart seemed a little put off by the gift. "Is there a microphone in it?" he asked nervously before placing the figurine under his desk. Later in the inverview, Lynnee Cheney invoked some of the wilder suspicions about how the vice president spends his downtime. "He likes to watch old movies, every once in a while, he'll bite the head off a live chicken," she joked. Lynne Cheney was promoting her new book, Blue Skies, No Fences, a memoir about growing up in Wyoming. Stewart praised the book, but he also steered the interview toward current topics, such as gay marriage and the war in Iraq. He asked whether Cheney was doing enough to lobby President Bush and other religious leaders on gay marriage, because of his personal experience raising a lesbian daughter. Lynne said they have tried to keep a "zone of privacy" around their daughter, Mary, but she repeated criticism of a federal gay marriage amendment. The exchange grew a little heated when the conversation touched on Iraq, with Lynne Cheney defending the war, while acknowledging that she's frustrated at its slow pace. She said Bush and Dick Cheney deserved a lot of credit for preventing attacks against America since Sept. 11, 2001, unlike bombings against US embassies and the USS Cole, carried out after the first World Trade Center bombing. "The terrorists weren't reluctant to damage American interest and kill Americans," Cheney said. "You know they have been doing that all these past six years ... you know the Spanish bombing, the English bombing, and then all the bombings in Iraq," Steward said. "Yes, but we're talking about American interests," Cheney shot back, leaving Stewart stunned for a moment. "Aren't we interested in ... alright, I had assumed they were our allies, but alright," Stewart said. He then changed the topic and thanking Cheney for coming on the show. "If you do see your husband, because I don't know how much time he spends in the man-size safe ... please tell him we would love to have him on," Stewart said, quickly reconsidering. "You know what, no, OK, no, forget that. But you, we were delighted to have." The following video is from Comedy Central's Daily Show with Jon Stewart, broadcast on October 10, 2007



