»Vice-President Cheney insults Democrat: "funk You"«

Cheney, who as vice president is president of the Senate, then ripped into Leahy for the Democratic senator’s criticism this week of alleged war profiteering in Iraq by Halliburton, the oil services company that Cheney once ran .

Leahy and other Democrats have called for congressional hearings into whether the vice president helped the firm win lucrative contracts in Iraq after the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein.

During their exchange, Leahy noted that Republicans had accused Democrats of being anti-Catholic because they are opposed to some of President Bush’s anti-abortion judges, the aides said.

Cheney then responded, “f--- off” or “f--- you,” two aides said, both speaking on condition of anonymity.

That doesn’t sound like language that the vice president would use, but there was a frank exchange of views,” said Kevin Kellems, a spokesman for Cheney.

“I think he was just having a bad day,” Leahy said. “I was kind of shocked to hear that kind of language on the floor.”