Take your courage in both hands. And come with me. Deep into the beating heart of The Twilight Zone.

Here’s an excerpt from yesterday evening’s The Situation Room:

BLITZER: Meantime, the insurgency rages on. Nine people died, dozens more were wounded today when bombs ripped through a Baghdad market and two Iraqi checkpoints. The vice president Dick Cheney was asked about the Iraq situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: About a year ago, you said that the insurgency in Iraq was in its final throes. Do you still believe this?

RICHARD CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I do. What I was referring to was the series of events that took place in 1995. I think the key turning point, when we get back ten years from now, say, and look back on this period of time with respect to the campaign in Iraq, will be that series of events when the Iraqis increasingly took over responsibility for their own affairs.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLITZER: The vice president says that looking back now, it’s clear the U.S. underestimated the level of violence in Iraq.

First, let me clarify that the transcript is accurate. This is actually what Cheney said in response to what he was asked. 1995. No challenge by the interviewer. No comment by the interviewer or Wolf Blitzer. My jaw fell to the ground so hard that it bounced back up and clicked back into place. But interviewer and Blitzer didn’t bat an eyelid.

If you ask me, even if you forget the date, the rest of it doesn’t seem to have very much to do with the last throes of the insurgency either, and whether Cheney still believes what he had said, and why.

But how on earth did Wolf Blitzer come up with that paraphrase of what Cheney said? What has the man been smoking?

If Blitzer’s paraphrase makes any kind of sense to anyone, will you please take pity on me and let me know what it means, how the hell he arrived at it, and what relation it bears to Cheney’s statement?