Vice President Cheney

[crazyforgoofy]

Did he forget? Do you think he has memory problems or did some other motive cause him to say he'd never met John Edwards? You be the judge.

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/10/06/meeting/index.html

Oct. 6, 2004 | CLEVELAND (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday night that the debate with Democratic Sen. John Edwards marked the first time they had met. In fact, the two had met at least three times previously.
Cheney made the remark while accusing Edwards of frequent absences from Senate votes.
"Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer. I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session. The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight," Cheney told Edwards during the debate.
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.
Edwards didn't forget their prayer-breakfast meeting. The Democratic vice presidential candidate noted the discrepancy at a post-debate rally in a Cleveland park, calling it an example of Cheney "still not being straight with the American people."
"The vice president said that the first time I met Senator Edwards was tonight when we walked on the stage. I guess he forgot the time we sat next to each other for a couple hours about three years ago. I guess he forgot the time we met at the swearing in of another senator. So, my wife Elizabeth reminded him on the stage," Edwards said as the crowd roared.
According to Edwards' staff, Cheney replied, "Oh, yeah."
"She reminded him about the truth," Edwards told the crowd, "and come November, we're going to remind him that the American people do not want four more years of George W. Bush."

 

[Golter]

It was a completely false statement....

 

[Peter Pirate]

As was said on another thread...Once a liar always a liar.

 

[WDSearcher]

I suspect he was trying to make a point about Edwards' absences from the Senate of late, but he still shouldn't have said he'd never met him before unless he was really, really certain he hadn't. Because one little comment like that will take front-page over any other relevant comments he made at the debate. Not that I mind, necessarily, being a Kerry / Edwards supporter, but it still shows how little mistakes like that can become big stories at election time.

 

[danacara]

This one belongs squarely in my "who skinking cares" file

 

[dmadman43]

Maybe when he first met him he thought he was a Senate page. Or perhaps Edwards did not impress Cheney as being all that memorable. The fact the Cheney didn't remember Edwards speaks volumes about the impact Edwards made on him. I mean, there are only 100 Senators he needs to remember. How hard can it be? Unless you aren't all the memorable.

 

[danacara]

Originally posted by dmadman43
Maybe when he first met him he thought he was a Senate page. Or perhaps Edwards did not impress Cheney as being all that memorable. The fact the Cheney didn't remember Edwards speaks volumes about the impact Edwards made on him. I mean, there are only 100 Senators he needs to remember. How hard can it be? Unless you aren't all the memorable.

Get off that, you know that isn't it. By saying he didn't remember him, he was trying to minimize him, and you're voluntarily buying into his stunt with this, which is beneath your intellect. Of course Cheney remembers him. He's a bright guy.

 

[dmadman43]

Originally posted by danacara
Get off that, you know that isn't it. By saying he didn't remember him, he was trying to minimize him, and you're voluntarily buying into his stunt with this, which is beneath your intellect. Of course Cheney remembers him. He's a bright guy.

Of course he was trying to minimize him. Duh! Sarcasm is not lost on you

 

[gometros]

Originally posted by dmadman43
Maybe when he first met him he thought he was a Senate page. Or perhaps Edwards did not impress Cheney as being all that memorable. The fact the Cheney didn't remember Edwards speaks volumes about the impact Edwards made on him. I mean, there are only 100 Senators he needs to remember. How hard can it be? Unless you aren't all the memorable.

What speaks volumes is how untrustworthy the current administration is. Republicans are so hypocritical. If the role was reversed, they would have been all over Edwards for lying. But if Cheney says it, it's an undersandable error.

Cheney continued to illustrate his deception when he stated that the reduction in homicide attacks was directly related to the elimination of Hussein. How nice of him to let his administration take credit for it. Of course, it had nothing to do with Israel's security fence.

 

[Teejay32]

by saying nothing, Edwards loses. In making a federal case of it, Edwards still loses.

They don't call the guy Dick for nothing.

 

[dmadman43]

Originally posted by gometros
What speaks volumes is how untrustworthy the current administration is. Republicans are so hypocritical. If the role was reversed, they would have been all over Edwards for lying. But if Cheney says it, it's an undersandable error.

Cheney continued to illustrate his deception when he stated that the reduction in homicide attacks was directly related to the elimination of Hussein. How nice of him to let his administration take credit for it. Of course, it had nothing to do with Israel's security fence.

With Saddam funding the families of homicide bombers, how could it have NOT been a factor?

If the not remembering a first term Senator with meager experience is going to turn the election in Kerry's favor, the electorate is really more maleable than I could have possibly imagined.

The fact they they are making a stink over this incidates the fraililty of their platform.

 

[gometros]

He didn't say it was a factor. He said it was THE reason. And even though Saddam did give reward money to the families of homicide bombers, you are terribly naive if you think that his being out of the picture makes any difference. The money will still be there, be it from Iran or Suadi Arabia or Syria. the bottom line is that had nothing to do with the reduction in bombings (not elimination, since there are still the threat of terroist incidents in Israel).

 

[LisaZoe]

Perhaps Cheney didn't remember meeting Edwards before. He, Cheney, also gave the wrong website address for people who wanted to see the truth about the Bush Administration's connection to Haliburton. He said to go to factcheck.com but the correct address is factcheck.org. Now this might not seem to be a big deal except the address he gave goes to the site of George Soros, someone who is definitely not pro-Bush!

BTW - The correct site wasn't working when I tried it but it is run by the U of Penn's Annenberg Public Policy Center.

 

[DawnCt1]

Originally posted by dmadman43
Of course he was trying to minimize him. Duh! Sarcasm is not lost on you

And did so quite effectively, I might add.

 

[TimeforMe]

Wow! I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this, but I am. And I don't think he "forgot" meeting him--it was an intentional lie.

 

[Geoff_M]

crazyforgoofy,

I'll grant you that Kerry wasn't talking about the Klingon Empire when he said "around the globe, or elsewhere" if you'll grant that Cheney was talking about a working session of the Senate. Edwards isn't known as "Senator Gone" for missing prayer breakfasts and swearing ins. As Kerry likes to say, that's "pathetic".

LisaZoe, True but it appears that people are finding the correct site OK. I checked a few minutes after he made that comment and all I could get was "server too busy" messages on the Annenberg site. Dittoes for this morning.

 

[Tinks]

Wow! I took Cheney's remark to mean that he hadn't met Edwards on the job--in the senate--on the senate floor. Sure he met him at a few outside places, a prayer breakfast, a swearing in of a senator. The point he was driving home was Edwards hasn't been where he was supossed to be and Cheny was. WDSearcher is right on.

Why should we stinking care? Because the guy wasn't doing his job. Do you really want that kind of guy as V.P.?! I don't. I'm now trying to figure out why Kerry chose him in the first place. Anyone know?

 

[SoonerKate]

Actually, it seems that Edwards has presided over the senate as often as Cheney has since taking office.

Don't believe me?

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/crecord/index.html

2001 -
October 16 - Edwards

2002 -
Tue 3/5 - Edwards
Tue 11/12 - Cheney (to confirm Barkeley as Senator after Paul Wellstone's death)

2003-
Jan 7 Cheney (to confirm new senators after the 2002 midterm elections.)

And neither has presided in 2004.

If the vice-president isn't present, the Senate's first order of business is to appoint an acting president. It's been noted that when Cheney does visit the Senate on Tuesdays, he only meets briefly with the Republican Caucus and obviously doesn't stick around to chair Senate meetings unless absolutely necessary.

The funniest part, I think, is that of the TWO days Cheney was present for the senate meeting, he was photographed with Edwards on one of them. I would think that would be a fairly memorable occasion.

On Edwards' attendance record...

In the past year, he's missed missed 69 votes out of 321, or about 21 percent. Before this year, he had missed only 7 votes out of 1,307. During his five years in the Senate, Edwards voted 1,551 times out of 1,626 roll-call votes or 95.4 percent. (source)

When I have time later tonight, I'll look for Cheney's record from when he was in Congress.

Edwards isn't known as "Senator Gone" for missing prayer breakfasts and swearing ins.

As Cheney said it: ""Your hometown newspaper has taken to calling you Senator Gone.""

A search of the News Observer archives (Edwards' hometown paper) finds no such reference. There's one mention of it in The Pilot, a small, weekly paper based about 20 miles from Edwards' hometown (more than one, if you count the re-running of the original editorial and the news story relating to Cheney's mention of the paper today.). As the Pilot put it :

The Pilot hasn’t “taken to calling him” anything. In fact, the vice president’s obscure reference sent us scrambling to our library. And sure enough, we did publish an editorial 15 months ago, on June 25, 2003, headlined, “Edwards Should Do His Day Job.” In it, we noted that Sen. Jesse Helms used to be called “Senator No.” And we added: “Four and a half years into his first term, John Edwards is becoming known as Senator Gone.”

But we also wrote: “Members of the senator’s staff point out that Edwards’ attendance record this year has been better than the three other Democratic senators who are campaigning for president — Joe Lieberman, Richard Gephardt and Bob Graham. And the aides also say none of the votes Edwards missed was close, so his presence on the floor would not have changed the outcome.”

(Did you make it this far? Congrats!)

 

[WDSearcher]

Originally posted by DawnCt1
And did so quite effectively, I might add.

Actually, probably not. By being wrong about having not met Edwards, Cheney has people checking facts and talking about the fact that he has indeed met Edwards instead of the fact that Edwards didn't spend a whole lot of time in the Senate over the past year or so. It would have been far more effective for
Cheney to say, "I don't remember seeing you too often in the Senate chambers." If Cheney had said that, instead of trying to be flip -- a talent he really doesn't have -- he'd have put emphasis on Edwards' absences in the Senate instead of on his own inability to remember meeting people. THAT would have put focus where Cheney obviously wanted it -- on Edwards' attendance record.

If minimizing Edwards was what Cheney was going for, it didn't work, IMO.

 

[ThAnswr]

Originally posted by Tinks
Wow! I took Cheney's remark to mean that he hadn't met Edwards on the job--in the senate--on the senate floor. Sure he met him at a few outside places, a prayer breakfast, a swearing in of a senator. WDSearcher is right on.

If he meant he hadn't seen him on the Senate floor, he should've said so instead of misleading, one more time, by claiming the first time he met Edwards was last night.

Originally posted by Tinks
The point he was driving home was Edwards hasn't been where he was supossed to be and Cheny was.

Well, the point that's been driven home is Cheney either forgot he had met someone 3 times previous to what he was claiming or he just plain lied.

This is just the latest in a long list of Cheney "misspokes" that include "reconstituting nuclear weapons", Saddam Hussein's "longstanding relationship with Al-Qaeda", etc.