Sometimes the people running the Democratic campaigns remind me of a bunch of over-eager high-schoolers running for Class President.
During the debates, Cheney noted for the American public that one of the problems with Kerry and Edwards is that they have no voting record to back up their tough rhetoric. Cheney then threw in an anecdote that despite being his President of the Senate, Cheney has never met Edwards over the past four years until tonight, because Edwards has missed so much official business.
It turns out Cheney was wrong- they did meet, at a PRAYER breakfast in February 1st, 2001 (that would be 11 days after the inauguration), and immediately after the debate Edwards makes a big stink about it at a post debate rally, making sure all the talking heads and neetworks know about the Cheney ‘mistake.’
Do these clowns not realize that all this does is reinforce Cheney’s point? Here is the text from the debate:
The reason they keep trying to attack Halliburton is because they want to obscure their own record. And Senator, frankly, you have a record in the Senate that
irisclara
I thought Edwards responded that Cheney’s own sterling record included voting against Meals On Wheels and Martin Luther King Day.
Rob
The whole point of showing the picture of them meeting isn’t to say Cheney is wrong about Edwards attendence record (which he is) it is to show that Cheney has actually met Edwards before and that…CHENEY IS WILLING TO LIE FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES, THUS HE HAS A CREDIBILITY PROBLEM.
Kathy K
It could be an insult rather than a lie. He might just have found Edwards so unmemorable that he forgot ever meeting him…
ape
Attendance records are now relevant? Great. We’ll give you Edwards. Now, on to AWOL’s hard hard hard hard hard hard hard (22x! that’s hard work just to type it!) work relaxin’ at the ranch.
Incidentally, given that Cheney had a fair point (rebuttable perhaps); why did he choose to lie when he made it? Not that probity is anything to get in a flap about. At least, not when it concerns minor stuff like “why we are going to war” or “the basic facts in relation to my tax policy”
John Cole
There is a good chance he did not remember.
ape
“The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.” Cheney says in summary to a long passage.
You’d think he might have given some thought to whether the statement was actually true before he made it. I mean, the point about this statement is that it is so suprising. Yet there’s proven record of them meeting at least twice.
The first instinct of this administration is that ‘truth’ is less important than ‘principle’. (“It’s the principle of the thing that tax cuts help the poor”).
Ralph Gizzip
They may have both attended the prayer breakfast but that in no way implies they met each other.
For example, John and I have probably attended the same Browns / Squealers game but I can honestly say we’ve never met.
Terry
There’s been absolutely no refutation of what the Vice President said, notwithstanding a picture showing them at the same prayer breakfast meeting. The Veep stated that he had never MET him, not that he had never been in the same fucking room…after all, once ever couple of years, Edwards actually showed up on the Senate floor while Cheney was presiding from the Chair.
ape
Terry/ Ralph: Drudge has a photo of them sitting next to each other.
They sat next to each other at the prayer meeting.
He lists as follows:
On Feb. 1, 2001, the vice president thanked Edwards by name at a Senate prayer breakfast and sat beside him during the event.
On April 8, 2001, Cheney and Edwards shook hands when they met off-camera during a taping of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” moderator Tim Russert said Wednesday on “Today.”
On Jan. 8, 2003, the two met when the first-term North Carolina senator accompanied Elizabeth Dole to her swearing-in by Cheney as a North Carolina senator, Edwards aides also said.
(what’s happened to Drudge? yesterday he was right on the ball, trumpeting kerry’s pen as the second coming but firmly ignoring the bullet-pointed piece of paper on Bush’s lectern. does anybody know, was that real or a techy mock-up?)
in any case, the focus on this rather silly example of cheney lying seems way out of proportion. this strange distortion is possibly more to the point: SH “had an established relationship with al Qaeda”.
he’s still coming out with this stuff! (‘overwhelming’, it was before.)
OK, I have an ‘established relationship” with the person who sits next to me on the bus: the usual kind of centipede-like insinuation, crawling all around a link between 9/11 and AWOL’s optional war.
Even Rummy has just now refuted the link (or, slitheringly, at least that any evidence exists for it. not the same at all of course. YOU go out there and prove a negative. and when he desribed the evidence for the link as ‘bullet-proof? well, what the hell does that mean?)
but remember, still, that AWOL called them ‘allies’ in his flightsuit-playtime pronouncement. i guess me and the lady on the bus were ‘allied’ in our determination to reach the next stop. but sometimes people use language in ways that make.
No WMDs in Iraq: final conclusion today. Do you remember Limbaugh and his ilk endlessly mocking the Hans ‘Clusoe’ Blix? Are they fairminded? Will they say the same things about the US army? No decency at all.
ape
make SENSE! ha ha. not that anyone read that far.
also the [chief UN weapon inspector] Hans ‘CLusoe’ Blix.
my ass is talking faster than my fat fingers can wiggle.
Harry in Atlanta
Edwards probably met Cheney when Cheney was went to the hospital and Edwards chased his ambulance trying to sign him up.
Rob
Pathetic. Even when caught in an obvious lie the Bushie morons won’t admit that their candidate was wrong.
He lied about the 9/11 – Saddam connection and he lied about meeting Edwards.
I can’t wait till this election is over so I don’t have to put up with blind people.
ape
did cheney really say this:
“I have never said there was a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.”
Interview on CNBC, June 2004:
“There clearly was a relationship. It’s been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming…
It goes back to the early ’90s. It involves a whole series of contacts, high-level contacts with Osama Bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials… ”
cheneyliar: overwhelming
rumsfeldbungler: bulletproof
AWOL: “The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda… ”
me: “The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between me and the lady on the bus is because there was a relationship between me and the lady on the bus… bulletproof maths & science shows unquestionably the we were both travelling at 33mph toward the same destination blah blah slither.
Donald – what a guy, “..solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qaeda members..”
Unfortunately, I seem to remember, we had some solid evidence of their presence in the US too.
wr
Cheney let Edwards get under skin with his cheap Perry Mason tricks – and this led to Cheney’s overstatement at a time when his justifiable anger got the better of him. But this is not nearly as interesting as the continual same ole, same ole charges that every mis-statement made by a Republican is either a LIE or a statement of IGNORANCE. Time for these persons to grow up, get a life, and try to start looking at people who don’t agree with them as being real, live humans! Cheney is a real person – not some robot programmed to lie and deceive. He would have to be an idiot to knowingly and deliberately lie about something like this that could be so easily be shown to be false
ape
cheney’s voting record on Apartheid is pretty weak.
wr
To suggest that Cheney (or Bush) is a racial bigot is completely absurd
ape
Racist? Who cares? Whatever Cheney’s reason for voting for apartheid and against Mandela he was just plain wrong.
Im not gazing down into his black soul to divine the reason; I might get bitten.
What’s more interesting, is that Cheney stood by his votes, and slithered in doing so, saying that Mandela was widely seen as a terrorist then. Widely? How widely? Enough so that he was in a small minority.
HH
“yesterday he was right on the ball, trumpeting kerry’s pen as the second coming but firmly ignoring the bullet-pointed piece of paper on Bush’s lectern”
The paper went through the proper channels with the debate commission, the pen did not.
A prayer breakfast? A swearing-in? This is pathetic. When did Edwards meet Cheney when he was actually doing his job?
HH
“did cheney really say this:
‘I have never said there was a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.'”
No he didn’t say that, thanks for playing. The most anyone can find is an implication that there MIGHT be a connection between Iraq and Sep. 11, and now Kerry’s spinners are claiming Cheney said that Saddam was BEHIND Sep. 11, a total lie.
HH
“No WMDs in Iraq: final conclusion today.”
Again – sloppy, sloppy, sloppy and wrong. They are discussing WMD stockpiles and Duelfur will lay out the evidence today that Hussein was in the process of reconstituting his programs, and of course the MSM tried to bury the sarin and mustard gas found thus far.
wr
“Im not gazing down into his (Cheney) black soul to divine the reason; I might get bitten.”
Hate. Hate. Hate. Nothing like hate to build up this country. Nothing like continued bigotry – racial or otherwise – to perpetuate the divisiveness that persists in human society. Nothing like demonizing the souls of those persons with whom you differ in opinion. But I do not believe hate alone will be a strong enough platform for the Democrats to win this next election. And if they do win as a result of a campaign waged through hate, I am fearful about the consequences for us all.
ape
HH: you’re right about the quote.
sorry about that. Wonkette lied to me! Probably got it wrong as Edwards spent some time accusing Cheney of linking AQ and SH, and Cheney went back to the top and refuted a different charge; ie that he had linked 9/11 and SH.
No credit to me.
Sandi
Wether Cheney lied for forgot the meetings is imaterial. That arguement is made only to cover up the underlying fact that Cheney made, that Edwards was not there doing his job. Mr Gone indeed.
Steverino
did cheney really say this:
“I have never said there was a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.”
No. What he said was:
“The senator has got his facts wrong.
DANEgerus
Though better behaved then JFKerry(D), John Edwards(D) sloganeering included some transparent lies. Not misrepresentation… willful lies.
A few examples include the Haliburton meme repeated… the politically motivated reversal of position on the ‘threat’ of Saddam by John Edwards(D) and his repeated mistake on the Defense of Marriage Act.
John Edwards(D) and Dick Cheney(R) worked together in the Senate for four years… in all that time John Edwards(D) poor attendance record meant he found no reasons to ever ‘meet’ with the President of the Senate which demonstrated John Edwards(D) disinterest in doing his job as a lawmaker. Certainly this correlates with the fact that he wasn’t bothering to run for a second term he was guaranteed to lose.
So when Dick Cheney(R) dressed him down for that poor attendance record finishing with the sarcastic flourish “we never met” why didn’t John Edwards(D) dispute that?
Apparently because he too had to wait until (D)emocratic party operatives produced photos of them at an event which “proved the VP lied”.
To ignore John Edwards(D) poor performance, sloganeering and fabrications and misrepresent Dick Cheney’s dismissive sarcasm as a ‘lie’ shows the level of activist participation in this election to which the NewsMedia is committed.
They are all Mhore-Ons…
Sandi
The eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly and desperately drunk with a certain belief. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1845
Guess that leaves out both Johns who flip-flop with no beliefs.