Diane Sawyer becomes the buzz of election night

Ann Oldenburg, USA TODAY | USATODAY

She went viral. Oh yeah.

ABC veteran Diane Sawyer's election night coverage was the talk of Twitter Tuesday night, as she somewhat slurred words at times, seemed to ramble at times and wasn't the usual buttoned-up news anchor we've come to know. Her performance prompted many to wonder if she was overtired or had suffered a stroke, and it prompted others to crack jokes about what else might have caused the behavior.

If you missed her, Gawker has put together a video of her moments, offering "evidence of why everyone thought Diane Sawyer was ----faced on air last night."

"OK," she said at one point around 10 p.m. ET, "I wanna — can we have our music, because this is another big one here? Minnesota, we're ready to project Minnesota, rrright now. … Well, tonight we know that President Barack has won Minnesota," she said, stumbling over the president's name.

Josh Groban tweeted, "I'll have what Diane Sawyer is having."

Ricki Lake retweeted the comment: "And Diane Sawyer declares tonight's winner is... chardonnay!"

One tweeter likened it to the episode of HBO's drama The Newsroom in which anchorman Will McAvoy ate pot brownies before being summoned to his anchor desk to report a news story.

Of course a Drunk Diane Sawyer twitter page popped up, with tweets including: "Diane Sawyer MUST HAVE TACO BELL" and "OK, I'm going to pass out now. Wake me up when#Romney concedes the race. #DrunkDianeSawyer must sleep."

This isn't the first time Sawyer has come across this way on air. In 2009, a video of her reporting on Obama's inauguration carried the headline Sawyer Hangover?

Sawyer and have ABC have not responded to requests by USA TODAY for comment.

UPDATE, 1:30 p.m.: Diane Sawyer has just tweeted an acknowledgement of the chatter: "Read your tweets the good, bad, and the funny. See you on @ABCWorldNews."