So, as most of you probably have heard by this point, Dick Cheney shot some dude while they were out hunting for quail.  First, let’s clear a little something up here that every major media outlet up to this point has gotten terribly and irresponsibly wrong; they weren’t hunting for quail, they were hunting with Quailman, who has been lying low the last few years but remains a tireless warrior for all that is grood in the world.  And what were they hunting?  Zombies, the greatest threat to our nation’s security since slap bracelets.  What actually happened was that this lawyer guy foolishly wandered away from the main zombie hunting party and one of the undead fiends grabbed him.  With just seconds to think before the vile creature ate this dude’s brains, Dick Cheney decided that his best bet was to use his heat vision to set the zombie on fire.  Alas, when one is being held by a burning zombie, one tends to get a bit singed around the edges, to say nothing of being thoroughly soaked in that on-fire zombie smell that even Febreeze can’t properly get rid of.  Of course, after all this happened, the mishapular dude who was so recently liberated from the cold and smelly embrace of the living impaired needed a bit of medical attention, and since all concerned were worried that CNN couldn’t be trusted not to reveal all America’s top secret plans and tactics in the War On Zombies, they came up with the story about quail, shotguns, and all that jazz.  A great hullabaloo has since ensued, as many politicians and TV reporters, though rightly suspecting a zombie connection to Dick Cheney (though little suspecting that Dick Cheney & The Zombie Connection would be an awesome name for a band), but altogether lacking proof, have become outraged as usual.

            As often is the case in matters of this sort, a little historical perspective can do a great deal of good when it comes to dispelling the rumors of the day, and it just so happens that contrary to popular belief, Aaron Burr (who, incidentally, knew for a fact that Alexander Hamilton had long since been replaced with an interdimensional ninja vampire assassin but chose not to tell anyone out of a sense of honor and awesomeness) was not the only vice president to shoot someone while in office.  So put on your learning trousers and suspend your disbelief, because we’re about to take a little trip down our national memory lane.

            Hannibal Hamlin (1861-1865), for instance was forced to step down during Lincoln’s second term after a furor arose in which Charles Sumner was revealed to be a werewolf and in which Mr. Hamlin subsequently slew him with a silver weed whacker.  I could go on, but the entire episode will probably be made into a Hugh Jackman movie at some point in the next year, so you can just go and watch it then.

            George Clinton (1805-1812) inadvertently started the war of 1812 after he learned that British parliament was plotting to steal all of our fledgling nation’s reserves of funk and funk-related paraphernalia.  Failing to convince Congress of the dire need to take action, he nonetheless received permission of James Madison to travel secretly to England and preemptively steal all the funk belonging to British Parliament.  In an audaciously badasstacular caper, and with the assistance of his awesome dreadlock-derived powers, George Clinton did indeed make off with the official funk of the U.K, but realizing that the King’s army would never let him escape as long as the funk remained in his possession, he was left with no choice but to travel to the distant future and start a band, after which point the statute of limitations had long since run out.

            Adlai Stevenson (1893-1897) was briefly at the epicenter of a swirling vortex of scandal and mixed metaphors after he discovered that the Lincoln Bedroom was not only haunted by the ghost of our nation’s only President to have ever gone into the future and fought the Klingons, but also by a groovy taffy monster.  Enlisting the help of the Harlem Globetrotters and Phyllis Diller, Adlai Stevenson came up with a brilliant plan in which he and his dog would dress up like hair stylists and distract the taffy monster while the rest of his kooky gang would drop a net on it or hit it with a barrel or something.  Although it was eventually proven that the taffy monster was in fact merely Levi Morton trying to chase everyone away from the White House in order to dig up George Washington’s secret pirate treasure, it was all the same decided that the whole tawdry affair was better kept a secret.

            So there you have it, just a few of the vice presidents of America who have been compelled by the national interest to issue beatdowns to the forces of evil.  And next time you can go out for a walk in the forest without having to take your zombie repellent along, just remember who’s out there tirelessly setting zombies on fire.