In June 2006, Steven Howard -- an environmental consultant with high morals but little sense -- decided it would be a great idea to sort of maybe kinda shove Darth Cheney to get his attention so that he could tell him what a shit he is about Iraq. To Darth's credit, he didn't immediately disembowel Steve because of the children present, but Steve did get picked up by the Secret Service and had to sit in a county jail cell for three hours.

But then, suddenly, Darth decided that he didn't want to press charges and Steve, in a desperate effort to save his life, filed a lawsuit to hopefully get enough press to avoid his inevitable grisly demise. What his lawyers found, though, is that no one really knows with how much force he touched Darth (who is refusing to say) and that the Secret Service might be a bunch of whiny little girls who get in snits and hang up on each other and try to make people who touch the Vice President look as bad as possible, possibly to avoid people thinking it's okay to run around inappropriately touching the Vice President. Actually, um, that last part I might be ok with because I don't want some crazy right wing guy thinking it's cool to run up on whomever ends up being the next Veep (or President) because they tend to make with the guns.

Secret Service: Detailed Look at '06 Turmoil [NY Times]