The White House, one of the most historic structures in the nation's capital, burnt to the ground today after Vice President Dick Cheney attempted to incinerate a cache of CIA interrogation tapes in his office.
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.
The accidental blaze quickly spread from the videotapes to a nearby stack of transcripts of phone conversations involving Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and singer Barbra Streisand that Mr. Cheney had obtained via a warrantless wiretap.
"Once those transcripts caught on fire, I knew the building was a goner," Mr. Cheney said. "There were literally thousands and thousands of pages of that stuff."
Speaking in front of the charred remains of the historic building, administration spokesperson Dana Perino said that the White House might have been saved had it not been for an unfortunate bureaucratic mix-up: "Instead of calling the fire department, President Bush called FEMA."
Andy Borowitz is a comedian and writer whose work appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and at his award-winning humor site, BorowitzReport.com. He hosts an all-new edition of "Next Week's News" starring Amy Sedaris. John Oliver (The Daily Show) and Christian Finnegan (VH1's Best Week Ever) at Comix on Thursday January 17 at 8 PM. Comix is located at 353 West 14th Street, just east of Ninth Avenue. For tickets, call 212-524-2500 or go to comixny.com. For a $5 discount, use the promotional code ANDY.