Obviously, much has happened since my previous meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney. His whereabouts have not been disclosed for months, prompting rumors in some circles.

Doc Nagel: Vice President Cheney, I appreciate you meeting with me here at this undisclosed location.

Vice President Dick Cheney: Please, call me Dick!

DN: Let's not start that again. Now, I want to begin with your reflections. Since we last spoke, there has been great tragedy.

VP: Yes. My own portfolio is pretty well diversified, so I didn't suffer much personally. But there are many Americans much worse off. People have to learn to read the writing on the wall - especially small investors, who were the ones who took the biggest hit. Sure, stock trading is complicated, but you have to do your homework and know what you're buying into. Nasdaq? Please. What makes this country run are the fundamentals. I mean oil, steel. Commodities exchanges. Nasdaq. Hah!

DN: Actually, I wasn't referring to the stock market.

VP: Well, it's true, Enron's bankruptcy has struck close to home. Back when I was in the oil business, I remember Ken Lay telling me about his dream of turning this small distributor he'd picked up into the Chicago Mercantile of energy. I thought he was crazy, and I told him so. But Ken's a tenacious little bastard, and he made deal after deal, leveraging everything in sight - even his employee pension fund. He almost cornered the market in California, you know. But I had pulled out long before it all crashed. I'm so glad Ken was able to let me know what was up. If my retirement was caught up in Enron stock and he wouldn't let me sell it, that would have been terrible!

DN: As in Ken Lay's refusal to allow employees to sell their stock, in apparent attempt to evade securities regulatory law and keep the company's true financial picture from becoming public knowledge before he and his cronies could divest?

VP: Yeah, yeah, that's the deal. It's good to have friends in high places.

DN: I'm sure it is. But that isn't really the tragedy I was referring to. The issue is that some people are concerned, because of all the precautions, that there might be a credible ongoing threat to your safety or the President's. These are very real concerns, and I wanted to know if you had any words of solace or reassurance for the American people.

VP: Nothing to worry about. They're still controlling my food supply, and so it's a simple matter to impose restrictions on hard or brittle snacks, or undercooked pasta - anything like that. In fact, all my meals are now prechewed by interns.

DN: I wasn't thinking about threats from pretzels, and anyway that's not really a national tragedy, is it? I'm referring to the reason you're here in this undisclosed location.

VP: Partly that's due to the remodeling of the Vice Presidential Palace in Washington.

DN: You mean the Vice President's Residence. It's not called a "Palace."

VP: Right, the Residence. The Gores had the thing so cramped, all those walls and everything - small rooms, doors all over the place. And the grounds were full of all these plants - flowers and things. It was a mess, frankly. So we're having the house remodeled and modernized.

DN: This is the Victorian era mansion that has been used as the Vice President's Residence - a house of historical significance and some architectural value and a landmark of the District of Columbia?

VP: Right, old place. But we managed to spruce it up. It didn't come cheap, though, I can tell you. Millions!

DN: During this time of economic recession and deficit spending, does it seem like a wise use of federal tax dollars to modernize the historic Vice President's Residence?

VP: Now, don't get me started on federal taxes. They're far too high, and that's one reason conservative Republicans like myself and President Bush have such contempt for Washington. But as long as we're going to live here, we might as well make ourselves at home. You know, with the exception of the years I spent in Texas in the oil business, I've spent the better part of my adult life right here in Washington. I was in Congress, and after that I was in the first Bush administration, before we all got hooked up with executive positions in oil. What comes from oil returns to oil, you know.

DN: I'm not sure I follow all that, but never mind. I mean why here, why in a place so entirely out of the public eye?

VP: It's purely precautionary. In fact, throughout a great deal of the Reagan administration, the Vice President was rarely seen. And during the Bush administration every effort was made to keep the Vice President away from the public.

DN: Vice President Cheney, let me be blunt. I'm referring to the events of September 11th. There's been a lot of speculation about when you might resume a normal schedule or return to Washington. People wonder where you're being hidden, if you're being moved from place to place frequently, whether there is any reason for all this concern.

VP: I am perfectly safe. As you can see, I've been outfitted with a parachute in case - for whatever reason - I might have to escape through a window. It's just smart to cover your bases.

DN: The parachute is in case you have to exit the building?

VP: Yes.

DN: But we're on the ground floor.

VP: It's okay; we'll build.

All rights reserved. This item has been produced without regard to the truth, or shame for that matter. Any similarities between the "Dick Cheney" represented here and the actual Vice President are not only coincidental, but intended.