Dick Cheney, meet Victor Yushenko

This week, the Smoking Gun posted a copy of Dick Cheney's "downtime requirements" -- a document the vice president's office gives to hotels where he will be staying.

For instance, the hotel is to provide four cans of caffeine-free Diet Sprite and several bottles of water. (If his wife is with him, she demands two bottles of either Calistoga or Perrier sparkling water.) Also, a pot of decaf coffee is to be brewed and ready to go when he arrives.

Although it's tempting to fixate on these orders and compare them with our own soft-drink preferences, there is a much bigger concern:

Allowing the hotel staffers to make Cheney's coffee and provide his Diet Sprite and water is a national security risk.

Evidently, it works like this: Cheney arrives at these hotels in a bullet-protected motorcade. He is escorted to his room by a team of protection officers. Then he walks in and takes a drink from a soda can put in place by a minimum wage-earning maid service wage with unfettered access to the vice president.

I wonder if Victor Yushenko likes Diet Sprite.

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