I know everyone (including this one) was so into the .com/.org mistake by the Vice-President. But the statement that is really the most bizarre to me was the following:
(Cheney to Edwards): “The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.”
It was surprising when I heard it. It is astonishing now that ABC reports that Cheney met Edwards three separate times.
So did Cheney really just misspeak (we used to call that lie), or could it be that this man, one heartbeat from the Presidency, could forget something as simple as this?
I have a feeling he was simply caught up in the heat of the debate and had a mental lapse. I cannot imagine he would purposefully make the statement and think he wouldn’t get called on it.
Definitely a lie. Just like the others in the debate. –> Dath Vader Lies?
“Your hometown newspaper has taken to calling you Senator Gone.”
“The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there’s a connection between Iraq and 9/11…”
“…the 90 percent figure is just dead wrong. When you include the Iraqi security forces that have suffered casualties, as well as the allies, they’ve taken almost 50 percent of the casualties in operations in Iraq.”
I am sure there are other lies.
How many of those meetings occurred in the Senate? Saying that Edwards met Cheney at a breakfast just proves his point. Edwards hasn’t been showing up for work.
There certainly are other lies. Both VP candidates have plenty to go around. Of course it is fashionable in many circles to focus on Cheney’s to the exclusion of Edward’s and vice versa. Me personally? I am frightened to have either of these men in the position of VP. The only thing that scares me more is that either Bush or Kerry will be president.
It is interesting that many people’s hatred of one ticket will cause them to actually support the other ticket. I personally cannot imagine how anyone who follows politics can be in support of either.
Factcheck.org Debate Report
And Cheney has been showing up?
All it says is they were both at the breakfast, you can’t draw conclusions other than that — a breakfast doesn’t mean they were skipping out of work. What it does prove is that Cheney either lied or forgot — two qualities that people shouldn’t have in public office.
And Kerry skipped out on a ton of meetings and votes (although he always managed to vote for those Senate pay-raises). And Cheney has been hiding out at undisclosed locations since 9/11. And Bush was on vacation for a large amount of his Presidency. These are the best men the Republicans and Democrats have to offer.
(I need to lay of the coffee and cynicism I think)
my understanding
was that by noon the day after
his “aids” had publically retracted that comment.
The Daily Show found footage
of them sitting side by side
at some benefit event 2 or 3 years ago.
To me, an honest mistake wouldn’t be a big deal. What’s of greater concern is for the veep to make such a statement with absolute certainty. Because absolutely certain and absolutely wrong is a deadly combination.
a lie is a lie is a lie i guess.
I think it was more theatrical than anything, making a statement about how little Sen Edwards shows up to work.
probably would have been better ways to convey that.
no one comes out smelling like a rose in these things, so what’s the actual tally of who lied/misquoted/used mis-information more?
How about a misstatement – the context was not that he was accusing Edwards of avoiding him, but of avoiding his senate post.
Think about it in this context – there’s a person I know works in the same building as me, but he’s never there when I stop by his cubicle. I’ve met him at team lunches or baby showers, but he’s impossible to track down at the office. I might be moved to similar hyperbole in his case – especially since (for now) I’m his boss.
From this point of view, I don’t think it’s any worse than “voting for the bill before voting against it,” another simple misstatement.
I agree with nick — Cheney was probably using that to make a dramatic statement on Edwards’ Senate attendance. It was designed to get attention — and boy did it work! — but unfortunately it was the wrong way to do it in this debate. Not when so many people are eagle-eyeing them for mistakes and lies, and not when so many people have access to check up after them. It might’ve worked in years past, but it was a bad idea this year.
To say that you’ve never met a senator when you’re president of the Senate says more about you than said senator. If you really cared about your role as Senate president, you would make a point to try to get to know as many senators as you could, to get a feel of who you can work with and who will oppose you every step of the way. At least that’s how I’d do it.
Think about it in this context – there�s a person I know works in the same building as me, but he�s never there when I stop by his cubicle. I�ve met him at team lunches or baby showers, but he�s impossible to track down at the office. I might be moved to similar hyperbole in his case – especially since (for now) I�m his boss.
Yes, but would you do it in a televised shareholder’s conference? And, would you say that you’d never met him under any conditions as the VP did, or would you say that you’d never met him in his cubicle? Cheney’s line was clearly rehearsed. He just should have reviewed it for accuracy first.
I already pointed out in prior comments how Kerry could be assured of victory.
In the VP debate, Edwards mentioned that only 5% of cargo is inspected. If he had gone further and enumerated Bush’s incredible unwillingness to protect the homeland he could have scored huge points.
I think you’re missing Cheney’s point. He was saying that Sen. Edwards is such a lightweight that most of the people who’ve met him in casual settings promptly forget him.
He was like a mosquito buzzing around Vice Pres. Cheney throughout the debate, irritatiing and annoying but not in any way memorable.
Cheney knew that he had met Edwards before (just as he knew that he distorted the record on his own appearances in the Senate, and the fact that Democrats were excluded from the Tuesday meetings– thus, Cheney’s vulgarity in response to Senator Leahy’s comment earlier this year). Like so much of what Cheney asserted during the debate, this statement smells like part of a strategy to derail Edwards from issues and to divert his limited time toward defensive counterattacks. Edwards was wise to avoid Cheney’s personal attacks, rebutting only factual distortions (and outright lies) that could be turned into positively-stated Kerry/Edwards position statements.
I have seen no comments on bro. Cheney’s statements that make the implicit conclusion that the war in Iraq is over. His “side” seem insistent on separating the swift march to Baghdad with “mission accomplished!”
The whole sorry undertaking is just barely getting started and the various copouts about how we’re training Iraqi security forces to replace the occupation are transparently absurd, just as is the pretense that somebody you CALL the prime minister is somehow like a duly elected official. And bridling at references to this fiasco as a “puppet government” which it clearly is.
Love.
… or could it be that the man who would be a hearbeat away from the Presidency simply forgot as well? Perhaps the sting of being outed to millions of voters as “Senator Gone” momentarily purged John’s mind of his very fond and undoubtedly cherished memories of previous meetings with Mr. Cheney; memories that, we come to find out later, were seared — seared — into him.
The wannabe VP’s subsequent total recall and laughably righteous indignation should go down as a textbook example of l’esprit de l’escalier.
to me, it seems like cheney lied about meeting edwards on purpose.
first of all, his setup was suspect. cheney prefaced the comment by saying that he was in the senate on most tuesdays. as we all know, tuesday is one of seven days of the week. if he’s only there once a week, there’s a good chance he won’t see edwards. this makes his comment more outlandish.
now, as far as his comment – that he had never met edwards before the debate – this was proven false almost immediately after the debate. in fact, it was easy to do so. within minutes, the dailykos had a photo of cheney and edwards sitting side by side.
my feeling is that cheney put such and easy lie out there because he knows the media is lazy. it is so easy for them to disprove this statement or at least question it (remember the lead in). sure enough, on wednesday, almost every news program i saw and almost every newspaper i read had a story about cheney meeting edwards before the debate.
but when this lie is being discussed it means that other lies are not. just the way cheney and company like it. remember, this is the guy that would purposefully say “kennedy” instead of “kerry” when talking about kerry to make him seem more liberal.
Well, following ABC’s thinking, Cheney’s statement shouldn’t be used against him because it isn’t “central to his efforts to win.”
Is it a true? No. Can it be proven to be a deliberate lie? I’m not sure.
But can Kerry’s tax-hike rhetoric be proven to be a deliberate misstatement? I think so.
Was Kerry’s Christmas in Cambodia true? Was it a deliberate lie?
From The Congressional Record, via Jerome Armstrong:
In the last 4 years, Cheney has actually presided over the Senate exactly twice. His Tuesday meetings were lunches with Republicans and I doubt Edwards was invited.
If Cheney really wants to pursue this line of questioning, I suggest that we take a look at how many days Gov. Bush was in residence in the Statehouse during his run for the presidency in 1999 and 2000. Or, we might look at what percentage of the time President Bush has spent at his “ranch,” Camp David or the “family compound” in Kennebunkport.
As the 9-11 Commission report shows, Bush was on vacation and not receiving daily briefings from the DCI in the month before 9-11. Mr. Cheney needs to be very careful about casting these particular stones.
There are no politicians that do not lie.
The one good thing about this particular election is the number of people who had stopped caring and stopped being involved, who are now energized. It is sad, in a way, that it took my deciding my president was lying to me to get me out, volunteering, and working hard for John Kerry – but it did take what it took. IN the same way, it took the Commonwealth of Massachusetts driving a friend into near bankruptcy for me to notice the attack on the right to counsel for the poor and start to fight back. My point is that sometimes it takes extremes to energize enough people to work hard enough to get positive change.
i think the posts associated with “max lybbert” are generated from a computer program. if you input information unfavorable to the republican party, it automatically responds about something unfavorable about the democratic party. when will version 2.0 be released?
He may have forgotten. But he’s deceptive, and good at it. This remark was planned and deliberate. It was far more effective to say he had never met Edwards before. Cheney, of course, is a dutiful presider over Senate business in his role as vice-president and he is a careful observer of all present. To say he had never met Edwards before meant that Edwards was never present — an absentee Senator. That goes along with the remark that Edwards was a no show at most committee meetings. Of course Cheney’s statement was a lie.
it was a joke. he was undercutting edwards. it worked.
Most insidious is that, like the Dan Rather issue where days were spent debating the source of secondary documents instead of the issue of personal accountability in the military (and other issues), the country spends its time debating and researching times that Cheney met Edwards. Who really cares?
The result is that Cheney is either negligently forgetful, or (more likely) willing to tell falsehoods to make a point. We can see clearer evidence as Chush-Beney misrepresents the recent CIA report: they are saying that it proves the opposite of what 98% of everyone else understands it to mean – completely distorting it.
Statements to this effect should be made now, and plainly, while people can still clearly see the falsehoods. Dems should proclaim “this misrepresentation of reality has been going on for 4 years, and if they get re-elected it will continue to happen.”
Brentmeister, my comments aren’t meant to be knee-jerk reactions. I mainly want people to consider the foundations for their support of, or opposition to, particular people, policies, or laws. In other words, “You know how you want to save the world; how you want to put all the big bad meanies away forever; how you want to make the birds chirpier, the sun shinier, the breeze breezier � well, I want to be the guy trying to stop you!“
I think that a little opposition sharpens people’s minds, and leads to better policy. Some day I’ll get tired of this and move on. For now, I think forums are more interesting when at least some posts have actual substance. Wasn’t one of the 9/11 Ciommission’s findings that “groupthink” led to a lot of bad things (not to mention sitting around in a room feeling all gushy that everybody else agreed with you)?
Besides, some of the liberal posters here have made me rethink my own positions, and have presented evidence and news that I haven’t yet figured out how to rebut.
(I can’t believe I overlooked this)
Brent, which features would you like to see in version 2.0?
i have 2 feature requests:
1. i would like responses to be informed by the privatization of policy making having rendered the rhetoric of both parties irrelevant. criticism shouldn’t be leveled at political puppets but corporate masters.
2. replies should be lighthearted and humorous as public political discussions always border on the absurd. for instance: “politics should be like nascar. candidates should be made to wear the logos of their corporate sponsors.”
I’ll take these feature requests under advisement.
I agree that I can be more lighthearted. However, I’ve had that go bad in the past because of the trouble with talking over the web. I can’t think of any examples right now, but I have had trouble with the word “cracker” (for computer criminal) when some people thought I was being racist, and others thought I was referring to food.
Sure, it was a deliberate lie and probably planned ahead of time. I don’t think that sharing a stage with someone two years ago really counts as meeting someone (politicians get placed next to people they don’t know many times a week).
But why is no one mentioning that Sen. Edwards didn’t think they met either? (Or he would have said, “Uh… we have met – remember….”) But he didn’t say that until the next day.
So sure, it’s a lie – but the point was probably more important than this particular lie – which has to be pretty low down on the list of dishonest stuff to talk about.
Senator Kerry when asked what prompted his statement “I voted for the 87 billion before I voted against it” replied that he was tired from campaigning, that he misspoke and that he made that statement late at night. That’s a fine explanation, except for the fact that he made that statement right in the middle of the day. That Kerry (the PRESIDENTIAL hopeful) would lie/misspeak about the 87 billion statement is just as relevant (or “astonishing” as Mr. Lessig wrote) as Cheney’s statement. While its fine to question Cheney at lest be fair and recognize the distortions from both sides.
It’s been quite a while, and I would never have thought of it myself, but Slate’s NPR program (Day to Day) answered this today when the political commentator said that Edwards wouldn’t want to admit to being nothing memorable.
Along these lines:
“I never met you until today.”
“We’ve met, don’t you remember?”
“No. Did you do something special?”
Well now.. the man does have a bad heart. It could be that a temporary lack of blood flowing to the brain caused a random memory loss… or it could be that he was just flat out lying.
His boss got away with it in the other debate, so he figured he could do it too.
I never thought politics could stoop so low. It’s pathetic. The Republicans have told so many lies, they don’t even remember what the truth is anymore!