For the last four years, [Vice President Cheney] has been defying a presidential order requiring executive branch agencies to account for the classified information they handle. When the agency that enforces this rule tried to do its job, Mr. Cheney proposed abolishing the agency.

Mr. Cheney, who has been at the heart of the administration's darkest episodes, has bizarre reasons for doing that. The Times reported that the vice president does not consider himself a mere member of the executive branch.

In response to inquiries concerning his failure to follow the laws applying to the White House and the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government, Dick Cheney revealed today that he is his own branch of government. Mr. Cheney, who will no longer go by the title of Vice President, said that he had not previously disclosed this information "for national security reasons." The new branch of government will be known as the Undisclosed Branch of Government, spokesmen said. The title of the branch of government -- and Mr. Cheney's actual title -- is classified.

Mr. Cheney disclosed that his office encompasses Executive, Congressional, and Judicial functions. In an usual display of cnador, aides to Cheney announced that, just as he spends time in the White House and the Capitol Building, he also spends a significant amount of time working at the Supreme Court. "This is one of the heretofore 'undisclosed locations,'" an aide divulged. The aide, who did not reveal his name because he feared future indictment by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, said that Cheney was secretly known as "the Tenth Justice".

Critics said that Mr. Cheney was out of line. "He can't just create his own branch of government," said Constiutional Scholar Professor Jenna Blinkerton. "That, in itself, is against the law."

Cheney responded that his critics were "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" after which the FBI took Professor Blinkerton into custody and placed her in a naval brig in North Carolina.

Mr. Cheney also contended that if he were breaking a law, he could only be prosecuted by the Other Undisclosed Branch of Government, which is made up of his wife, Lynn Cheney, his daughters, one of his dogs, and Alberto Gonzales.