Via Mediaite, any hack can use topical material to get a crowd laughing but it takes a craftsman to reduce someone to hysterics with gags that would have felt stale, oh, eight years ago. You’re going to watch this clip and think, “Wait, did I just see … a Halliburton reference?” You sure did, plus the ten millionth goof on Cheney for having shot that guy in the neck via the part where he’s waving around a rifle. They must have some master checklist, last updated in 2006, titled “Funny Things About Dick Cheney” which they call up any time they write bits like this. At the very top of the checklist, apparently: Gravely serious cardiac complications.

I like Mika and she’s usually not a jerk, so I’m going to pretend that she’s convulsing here not over Cheney gasping for air but at either (a) the audacious tastelessness of the gags or (b) the sheer stale hackishness of the bit. Pretend with me.