As Europe has gone into the sewer, the Democrats are eager to follow with shallow or hollow justifications.

A good book name for the lowering of the U.S. culture which began in the 1960’s and accelerated in the 1990’s would be “The Sewer Enlightenment”, or “How the Death of Right and Wrong began”.

If you say you a regular voter, then you must decide to vote either Yes or No. Its really not that hard. Although if you keep flipping a coin, maybe it will land on its side….

“In fact, we did post an article pointing out that Cheney hasn’t profited personally while in office from Halliburton’s Iraq contracts, as falsely implied by a Kerry TV ad. But Edwards was talking about Cheney’s responsibility for earlier Halliburton troubles. And in fact, Edwards was mostly right.”

Poor Bush team. Even they experts they point to are noticing that the accusations are “mostly right.”

AJ

The most interesting part of the whole performance was Cheney speaking of “the war” as if it were over which doesn’t seem to be the case. He said some guy was in Baghdad before the war and is still there after the war.

That’s taking “mission accomplished” to some rather great lengths.

Love.

From the document covering the debate (I’ve modified some paragraphing):

We can only give Edwards partial credit for his Halliburton attack, however. He implied that Cheney was in charge of the company when it did business with Libya in violation of US sanctions, but that happened long before Cheney joined the company.

Edwards was also slightly off when he said Halliburton paid millions in fines “while he (Cheney) was CEO.” What he meant was that it paid fines for matters that took place while Cheney was in charge. … Halliburton failed to disclose a change in its accounting procedures that resulted in making its earnings look better. Cheney himself was not charged with any wrongdoing, however. …

On other matters, Edwards said Halliburton “did business with Libya and Iran, two sworn enemies of the United States” and is now “under investigation for having bribed foreign officials” while Cheney was CEO.

• Iran: Indeed, Halliburton has said it does about $30 million to $40 million in oilfield service business in Iran annually through a subsidiary, Halliburton Products and Services Ltd. The company says that the subsidiary fully complies with US sanctions laws, but the matter currently is under investigation by a federal grand jury in Houston.
• Bribery Investigation: U.S. and French authorities currently are investigating whether a joint venture whose partners included a Halliburton subsidiary paid bribes or kickbacks to win a $12 billion construction project in Nigeria.
• Libya: Edwards was wrong to include Libya, however. In 1995, before Cheney joined the company, Halliburton pled guilty to criminal charges … on exports to Libya and said it would pay $3.81 million in fines. Those violations dated back to 1987 and 1990.

No, this document wasn’t up when the debate took place. Another document, covering deferred compensation that Kerry and Michael Moore have picked up on, was. However, this document (the one referring to the debate) points out:

• Halliburton does trade with Iran, but it discloses the trading publicly, and complies with the US sanctions on Iran. Yes, there is an investigation into the matter, but I’m sure Edwards knows that “innocent until proven guilty” policy we have in the US. There is still the moral question of whether it is right to trade with Iran, even if the trade is legal, but those details change the nature of the discussion.
• A Halliburton subsidiary is under investigation for bribery. Some people may consider this a shell game, but why not be honest about the facts? How much involvement would Cheney have had in a subsidiary’s actions?
• The Libya accusations tried to pin something on Cheney that he didn’t do