Among the many talking points during last night’s election coverage in the US was the performance ABC news co-anchor Diane Sawyer, who seemed to be getting into the celebratory spirit before the winner had actually been announced between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Sawyer is normally known for her straight-news-delivering style, which is extremely well practiced.

However, whether it was simply the long day, her over excitement, or maybe a bit of the cheeky stuff before the winner had got round to popping his own champagne, something was markedly different about her last night (November 6, 2012) as she propped herself up on her arms at the anchor desk and spoke more slowly than usual. "OK," The Huffington Post reported her saying at one point, "I wanna – can we have our music, because this is another big one here? Minnesota, we're ready to project Minnesota, rrright now. ... Well, tonight we know that President Barack has won Minnesota," she slurred.

Co-anchor George Stephanopoulos didn’t seem to notice too much, but Twitter did and she was soon trending on the website. "A bit tipsy," "hammered" or "on pain killers, muscle relaxers, benzos or some combination" were given as reasons by Tweeters for her apparent state, with one quipping after Mitt Romney lost "Bad night for Romney … Worse night for Diane Sawyer?"