The vice president sidestepped Neil Cavuto's questions about whether he had used the word all the media say he did (a word the FCC deems a naughty and costly expletive if uttered on radio or TV). Cheney said that was not the sort of language he usually used.

Cavuto asked Cheney if he had cursed at Leahy. "Probably," the veep replied.

'We Don't Play Games'

Meanwhile, the Washington Post today defended its decision to spell out the vulgar term rather than use such euphemisms as "the F word."

Executive Editor Leonard Downie stated, "When the vice president of the United States says it to a senator in the way in which he did on the Senate floor, readers need to judge for themselves what the word is because we don't play games at The Washington Post and use dashes."

But what about all those "expletive deleteds" in the Watergate stories?

And how come the Post didn't report Hillary Clinton's attack on former campaign aide Paul Fray, whom she called a "f--king Jew bastard"?

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Media Bias

Bush Administration