Borowitz explains what really caused the fire in the Vice President’s office of the White House.

According to White House aides, the blaze started shortly after twelve noon, minutes after Mr. Cheney slipped out of a cabinet meeting, saying that he had to “hit the head.”

But rather than using the bathroom as he had stated, the vice president instead went to his office and put a blowtorch to a pile of CIA interrogation tapes which the White House had feared might be subpoenaed in the near future.

“I started burning those things and boom, they went up like a rocket,” an apologetic Mr. Cheney later told reporters.