Dick Cheney's Demands

If no man is a hero to his valet, then what is Vice President Dick Cheney to hotel staff?

The Smoking Gun has published the veep's decidedly minimalist demands whenever he's checking into the local Motel 6 after a long day of doing whatever it is he does all day:

While the vice president's requests are pretty modest (no extract-the-brown-M&M demands here), Cheney does like his suite at a comfy 68 degrees. And, of course, all the televisions need to be preset to the Fox News Channel (what, you thought he was a Lifetime devotee?)….And when Cheney is traveling with his wife Lynne, the second family's suite needs an additional two bottles of sparkling water. Mrs. Cheney's H2O should be either Calistoga or, curiously, Perrier, a favored beverage of French terrorism appeasers.

More here.

Comments

[andy]

Rich, powerful people make ridiculous requests. What's new here?

[mediageek]

"What's new here?"

Um, perhaps that the requests aren't all that ridiculous?

[Number 6]

Also, the blood of one orphan.

[Ed]

Wanting a cold room and bottled water is "ridiculous"?
How so?

[SM]

Also, portraits of Nelson Mandela should be truned to face the wall.

[Kevin]

And he wants to see the followong crawl at the bottom of the screen when Fox News is on:

Hunting victim: Cheney shooting "all in good fun"...Majority of soldiers in Iraq still alive, VP credited...Cheney wishes "go fuck yourself" heckler a nice day...Breaking News: Bush likes Mom, puppies...Exclusive interview with Brit Hume tonight...

[Scott]

The one request that seems strange is the Fox News TV channel thing. Is the VP really too lazy to press a button with his thumb or finger a couple times or is there a danger that his brain will explode if forced to endure even a split second of any other channel. I wonder how many of the Gitmo detainees are simply maids that left the TV on ESPN. Maybe immediate access to Fox News is the contingency plan in case a staffer forgets the daily talking points memo. I also noticed no special food requests, but he probably travels with his own nourishing blood supply.

[surf]

W stayed at my wife's hotel a while back, along with rewiring the place, the President requested vanilla candles and a massage table....

[Uncle Leo]

They said they were sending an Asian girl!

[Jeff P.]

When I check into a hotel:
- all furniture must be facing west.
- the floor must be covered with towels. My feet must not touch carpet.
- television must be tuned to static and turned all the way up, this interferes with listening devices.
- Ironing board must be set up in shower.
- Gideon's Bible must be on bed and opened to Revelations.

[Lowdog]

I just want to know how you get into a position to be able to demand this kind of shit. I mean, as a DJ, if I get booked to spin at a club, I give them a list of things I need to do my job, but that's while I'm on the job. Now if I had a sufficiently big name, I could even do some of the rock-star like demanding when I got booked out-of-town - you know, alcohol and drugs, taxi/limo service, etc. But Cheney is just a politician...how come they get celeb treatment? And the next time I book a hotel, can I make a bunch of demands?

[linguist]

At the risk of totally missing the humor and looking like an ass...Cheney doesn't really stay at Motel 6, does he?

[Douglas Fletcher]

Anybody can make demands, it just depends on who you are as to how hard they'll laugh at you when you make them.

[Ken Shultz]

The one request that seems strange is the Fox News TV channel thing. Is the VP really too lazy to press a button with his thumb or finger a couple times or is there a danger that his brain will explode if forced to endure even a split second of any other channel.

There's a freakin' hundred channels these days... Is he supposed to flip through all one hundred just to find his channel? ...I don't think this is such a ridiculous request.

[Pepe]

The one request that seems strange is the Fox News TV channel thing. Is the VP really too lazy to press a button with his thumb or finger a couple times

I'm going to hazzard a guess that this means he wants Fox News to be one of the 20-30 stations that guests can receive in their room as opposed to being one of the other 200+ that are available on a local cable package but filtered out (for whatever reason) in hotels. I can't remember ever staying in a hotel that had the full local cable package in the rooms--usually just a select 12 (then, later, 20-40) that were received without a set-top box. Sometimes specifically the lower 12 from the local cable provider.

So the VPOTUS wants to stay somewhere in a cool room, with some bottled water and to be able to watch his favorite channel. How slow a news day was it?

[bubba]

Cheney's requests are nothing compared to what I saw demanded by cheapo college bands playing campus parties.

After a long day, my first inclination is not to turn on a channel of people bitching about me.

I'd want to know what channel Clinton watches...

[Zubon]

"Cheney is just a politician...how come they get celeb treatment?"
The Vice-President presumably travels with a fair number of people: staff, security, emergency medical technicians, the press corp that follows him, etc. When you are renting half a building, you can ask for the thermostat to get adjusted.

I vaguely recall an acquaintance who was the manager of a hotel where the President stayed for a short time. The President's staff more or less upgraded the building so that they could use it as a remote command center in the event of an emergency. Frankly, I assume the benefits of having such guests outweigh the cost of the bottled water.

Also, the VP must have his own lackeys. If the hotel does not adjust the room for him, someone on his staff can adjust the thermostat while they do the security sweep before the VP gets there. You don't want to work for an angry Cheney.

[Ken Shultz]

Yesterday I defended the President in a round about way, today it's the Vice President. ...Please nobody say anything silly about Donald Rumsfeld, and, for goodness' sake, don't say anything silly about Alberto Gonzales. ...I don't want to have to defend Alberto Gonzales!

[Scott]

Is it really that difficult to flip through the channels or enter the two or three digit code that will then magically take you to the channel of your choosing? Thousands of people in nursing homes and hospitals are able to do that every day without any permanent injuries. Like I said, I find it strange that the VP seems to have some issues with using a remote control, maybe he is saving all his energy for the trigger finger.

[ChicagoTom]

There's a freakin' hundred channels these days... Is he supposed to flip through all one hundred just to find his channel? ...I don't think this is such a ridiculous request.

Most Hotels offer their customers a channel guide. Esp. the types of places that the Vice President would be staying at.

But seriously, as someone who isn't a fan of Cheney, even I find it hard to criticize his requests. Maybe having the channel preset to Fox and having a particular brand of bottled water is a bit quirky, these are hardly ridiculous or over the top requests. In fact they are quite tame compared to the requests of Entertainment prima-donnas (sp??)

[Tom Crick]

If I were Cheney, I'd be demanding that the hotel manager come himself and fry an egg in my room. I'd have 'im send a masseuse to shampoo what little hair I had--and I wouldn't put up with any ugly frickin' masseuse rubbin' my bald head either! I'd have 'em redecorate my room with my favorite colors. I'd make 'em fire a maid for having a big ass. I'd order a rare steak and send it back for being well done. ...and if it came back well done, I'd send it back for not being rare. ...I'd use a lot of foul language. I'd make my dog shit in the lobby.

[bubba]

The topic of bottled water brands reminds of a story about Kerry in 2004. The claim is that he had a total hissy fit when his intern brought him the wrong brand of water. His brand, Evian.

I would hope that if for some reason Cheney were offered the wrong bottle, he'd still drink it.

I want to know which politicians choose Dasani. That's a good American brand. And, Coke doesn't settle for whatever Nature happens to offer. They analyze and manipulate the mineral content to get just the right mouthfeel. Now THAT is American ingenuity.

[vanya_6724]

C'mon people, Cheney doesn't watch Fox News, he asks the staff to preset the channel so that word will get out that Cheney supports Fox News. As soon as the bellboy leaves Cheney orders up the dial-a-porn.

[GILMORE]

this is absurd.

the guy wants water, livable temperatures, a single TV channel, a place to piss privately, a place to sit down, an ice bucket, and some soda, and this is somehow news?

Anyone who finds this the slightest bit commentworthy is an idiot. The guy is outlining the bare minimums of a Holiday Inn.

Meanwhile, Mo, a 'Libertarian' democrat congressman from NY drives a Chrysler 300 on the public tit.

this is about as boring a rider as i've ever seen. the average exec of any sized company is far more demanding.

JG

[thoreau]

vanya-

Porn? My guess is that as soon as the staff leaves the room he plays the video games that come on a lot of hotel televisions.

[Texas Department of Hunting (S]

Sometimes it is better to have friends at the police station than it is to have a good rider.

[Pro Libertate]

Since we're talking VP here and not president, I won't bring up my Top 100 Things I'd Do if I Ever Became a Libertarian President. However, if I were a libertarian vice president, I'd buy an RV. No hotels and no planes, except in moments of dire national distress.

However, without that kind of mindset, I don't think there's anything to see here. Corporate executives make more stringent demands than Cheney is.

[ChrisO]

Heck, whenever I check into a hotel these days, I consider myself fortunate if the linens have been washed. But then I don't usually stay at the sort of hotel that Cheney does, since I'm the one paying for it...

[Stevo Darkly]

As someone who spends a lot of time in hotel rooms at the moment, I find that the biggest challenge is figuring out how the remote control works, which channels are available, and which channel is which. (Since all of these are always different from hotel to hotel.) Even though it's only a very minor annoyance, why endure it at all if you don't have to? So, Cheney's request for a pretuned channel isn't all that outrageous or even lazy to me.

Anyone who finds this the slightest bit commentworthy is an idiot.

That is why I felt compelled to make a comment.

BTW, if I could make demands on a hotel, it would be to require that Comedy Central, the SciFi Channel and Spike would have to be available on the TV.

And I would need a geisha girl. No, two geisha girls. Who like to drink.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

This is good journalism. Keep it up.

[Ken Shultz]

I'd make 'em fire a maid for having a big ass.

Hey, Stevo! You're in Human Resources Management, right? ...There's nothing wrong with that legally, is there? ...under the policy that the customer is always right?

[mr.x]

Note the handwritten addition, he also wants a copy of the New York Times waiting for him. Does this cancel out the effect of Fox news on TV?

[BADONKADONK]

I was under the impression that the specific brands of water were only requested when his wife was with him. I don't think the point of this story was to embarrass the VP, I think it was to make him look more human, and thus more likable.