Dick
Cheney
Cheney seems to have always been ready for the worst. Maybe he learned not to count on good fortune after he lost his scholarship to Yale. Kicked out a second time, Cheney drifted back to Wyoming and was twice arrested for drunken driving. Hayes reports that Cheney always felt a sense of loyalty to Donald Rumsfeld because Rumsfeld persuaded President Gerald Ford to overlook Cheney's youthful indiscretions when Cheney was under consideration to succeed Rumsfeld as White House chief of staff... suffering his first heart attack at the age of 37?
- MSNBC 7/23/07
Video of the Veep being invited to f… himself
White House Memo
Groans at Home Re: (Cheney Joke Here)
*
E-Mail This
* Printer-Friendly
* Reprints
* Save Article
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: February 14, 2006
That was the question the White House grappled uncertainly with on Monday,
after Dick Cheney made history as the second vice president to fire a gun at
someone — though accidentally in this case — while in office. By the end of a
bizarre day in
"You can always look back at these issues and look at how to do a better job," Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said in what by this White House's standards was a forthright admission that it had been a rough couple of days.
Even Mr. Cheney's most loyal friends could only brace themselves for the one-liners to come.
"Dick Cheney is one of the most skilled shots I know, and they'll make
fun of it forever," said Alan K. Simpson, a former
He seemed to be right.
"Something I just found out today about the incident," Jay Leno said Monday on the "Tonight Show" on NBC. "Do you know that Dick Cheney tortured the guy for a half-hour before he shot him?"
Aside from Harry Whittington, the 78-year-old
In one of two raucous news briefings, Mr. McClellan told reporters that he first learned in a 6 a.m. phone call on Sunday — some 12 hours after the accident — that Mr. Cheney had sprayed Mr. Whittington with his shotgun. Mr. McClellan said he had urged the vice president's office to get the information out "as quickly as possible."
But Mr. Cheney's office does not appear to have taken that advice. Instead,
the vice president told the nation of the incident via Katharine Armstrong, a
member of the hunting party and an owner of the
On Sunday morning, Ms. Armstrong called her local newspaper, The Corpus Christi Caller-Times, and informed it of the shooting.
Mr. Cheney's office took some questions from reporters Sunday night but did not release a statement about the accident. It was left to Mr. McClellan to handle the White House press corps Monday morning, and things did not go especially well.
Just minutes into Mr. McClellan's early briefing, the press secretary was in a verbal brawl with David Gregory of NBC, who repeatedly asked why the press corps did not learn of the Saturday shooting, which took place at 5:30 p.m. Central time, for nearly 24 hours. Mr. McClellan responded that Ms. Armstrong had informed the press corps through her local newspaper.
"Scott, that's not the answer to the question," Mr. Gregory said. "Come on. You're totally ducking and weaving here."
"No, I'm not," Mr. McClellan said.
The exchange quickly escalated after Mr. McClellan told Mr. Gregory, "The cameras aren't on right now" and "you can do this later." Mr. Gregory retorted, "Don't be a jerk to me personally."
Mr. McClellan then said, "Calm down, David," and Mr. Gregory shot back, "I'll calm down when I feel like calming down."
Mr. McClellan's second, on-camera briefing was a bit less heated, although it was dominated by questions about when the president first learned that Mr. Cheney had peppered Mr. Whittington with pellets. Mr. McClellan could not say for certain, although he did say that Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, had informed Mr. Bush about an accident involving Mr. Cheney's hunting party on Saturday night.
Later, the briefing produced one of the more surreal e-mail messages from this White House in its five-year history. Around 4:40 p.m., the press office dispatched a clarification to reporters, titled "Response to a Question From the Briefing," which began, "Q: So when did the president definitively know that the vice president had shot somebody?"
The answer given was that Mr. Card had called to tell the president about the accident at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, without knowing of Mr. Cheney's involvement, and that Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff, had then spoken to Ms. Armstrong. Mr. Rove, the e-mail message said, "then called the president shortly before 8 p.m. E.S.T. to update him and let him know the vice president had accidentally shot Mr. Whittington."
Pictures of Mr. Cheney accompanied by hunting puns appeared on television all day Monday. CNN ran a photograph of a stern-looking Mr. Cheney alongside a picture of three quail under the headline "Friendly Fire." Later, it changed the headline to "Cheney's Fowl Shot."
Mr. Simpson, for one, said he was outraged by the media frenzy, and blamed Mr. Whittington for not announcing that he was coming up behind Mr. Cheney in the field, which is protocol.
"When it's all through after a few days, people are going to laugh at
the media for their overreaction," Mr. Simpson said in an interview from
his home in
The shooting was fertile ground for Jon Stewart, the host of "The Daily Show," the popular fake news program on Comedy Central. On Monday night one of the show's correspondents, Rob Corddry, introduced as a "vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst," said that "according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush," and "everyone believed there were quail in the brush," and "while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he would still have shot Mr. Whittington in the face."
On July 11, 1804, Vice President Burr shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel in
John Files contributed reporting for this article.
$178,437 = 2003 approximate compensation VP Dick Cheney received from Halliburton
$73 million = approximate dollar value of the illegal contracts
Halliburton-controlled companies signed with
5 = number of draft deferrals Cheney sought and obtained to avoid military
service in
"I had other priorities in the sixties than military service." -
1989 comment to the Washington Post
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
- Dick Cheney, Speech to VFW National Convention, August 26, 2002
Hawks need to wrestle with the reckless exaggerations of intelligence that were used to mislead the American public. Instead, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared Tuesday, "I don't know anybody in any government or any intelligence agency who suggested that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons."
Let me help. Mr. Rumsfeld, . . . [m]eet Vice President Dick Cheney, who said about Saddam on March 16: "We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
"We know he [Saddam Hussein] has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. . . ."
- March 16, 2003, NBC News
MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it’s not surprising that people make that connection.
MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don’t know.
MR. RUSSERT: Vanity Fair magazine reports that about 140 Saudis were allowed
to leave the
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don’t.
MR. RUSSERT: Joe Lieberman, the senator from
What is our plan for
…
MR. RUSSERT: Why is there no bidding?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I have no idea. ..... I don’t know any of the details of the contract because I deliberately stayed away from any information on that, but Halliburton is a fine company.
MR. RUSSERT: Reconstituted nuclear weapons. You misspoke.
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Yeah. I did misspeak.
MR. RUSSERT: Now, Ambassador Joe Wilson, a year before that, was sent over
by the CIA because you raised the question about uranium from
VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I don’t know Joe Wilson. ..... One of the questions I asked at that particular time about this, I said, "What do we know about this?" They take the question. He came back within a day or two and said, "This is all we know. There’s a lot we don’t know," end of statement. And Joe Wilson—I don’t know who sent Joe Wilson. He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back.
Cheney blasts media on al Qaeda-Iraq link
Says media not 'doing their homework' in reporting ties
June 18, 2004
Cheney said the press is "often times lazy, often times simply reports what somebody else in the press said."
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday the evidence is "overwhelming" that al Qaeda had a relationship with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, and he said media reports suggesting that the 9/11 commission has reached a contradictory conclusion were "irresponsible."
"There clearly was a relationship. It's been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming," Cheney said in an interview with CNBC's "Capitol Report."
"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."
"The press, with all due respect, (is) often times lazy, often times simply reports what somebody else in the press said without doing their homework."
Members of 9/11 commission found "no credible evidence" that Iraq was involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks carried out by al Qaeda hijackers, and they concluded that there was "no collaborative relationship" between Iraq and Osama bin Laden, the network's leader, according to details of its findings disclosed Wednesday at a public hearing.
However, the commission also found that bin Laden did "explore possible cooperation with Iraq."
Cheney told CNBC that cooperation included a brigadier general in the Iraqi intelligence service going to Sudan, where bin Laden was based prior to moving his operations to Afghanistan, to train al Qaeda members in bomb-making and document forgery.
Both Cheney and President Bush are strongly disputing suggestions that the commission's conclusion that there were no Iraqi fingerprints on the 9/11 attacks contradicts statements they made in the run-up to the Iraq war about links between Iraq and al Qaeda.
Bush, who has said himself that there is no evidence Iraq was involved in 9/11, sought to explain the distinction Thursday, saying that while the administration never "said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated" with Iraqi help, "we did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda."
"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," the president said. (Full story)
In his CNBC interview, Cheney went a bit further. Asked if Iraq was involved in 9/11, he said, "We don't know."
"What the commission says is they can't find evidence of that," he said. "We had one report, which is a famous report on the Czech intelligence service, and we've never been able to confirm or to knock it down."
The uncorroborated Czech report, which has been widely disputed, alleged that 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague before the attacks.
Asked if he knows information that the 9/11 commission does not know, Cheney replied, "Probably."
[Note: The 9-11 Commission issued a statement the next day refuting
Cheney's interpretation and his claim he had exclusive intelligence not shared
with the Commission.]
Ten Questions for Dick Cheney
10/03/2004
http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=1874
1.) When you appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, you announced that, "We will be greeted as liberators." In light of the fact that more than 1,000 young Americans have been killed, while more than 20,000 have been wounded, in the fighting in Iraq, do you think you might have been a bit too optimistic?
2.) Why were maps of Iraqi oil fields and pipelines included in the documents reviewed by the administration's energy task force, the National Energy Policy Development Group, which you headed during the first months of 2001? Did discussions about regime change in Iraq figure in the deliberations of the energy task force?
3.) When the administration was asking in 2002 for Congressional approval of a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq, you told the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars that Saddam Hussein had "resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons." You then claimed that, "Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop 10 percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten American friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail." Several months later, when you appeared on "Meet the Press" just prior to the invasion of Iraq, you said of Saddam Hussein, "We know he has reconstituted these (chemical weapons) programs. We know he's out trying once again to produce nuclear weapons, and we know that he has a long-standing relationship with various terrorist groups, including the al-Qaeda organization." As it turned out, you were wrong on virtually every count. How did you misread the signs so completely? And why was it that so many other world leaders, who looked at the same intelligence you had access to, were able to assess the situation so much more accurately?
4.) Considering the fact that your predictions about the ease of the Iraq invasion and occupation turned out to be so dramatically off the mark, and the fact that you were in charge of the White House task force on terrorism that failed, despite repeated and explicit warnings, to anticipate the terrorist threats on the World Trade Center, what is it about your analytical skills that should lead Americans to believe your claims that America will be more vulnerable to attack if John Kerry and John Edwards are elected?
5.) Speaking of intelligence, were you or any members of your staff involved in any way in revealing the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative who was working on weapons of mass destruction issues, after her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, angered the administration by revealing that the president made claims about Iraqi WMD programs that he and his aides had been told were unreliable?
6.) During your tenure as Secretary of Defense, you and your staff asked a subsidiary of Halliburton, Brown & Root Services, to study whether private firms could take over logistical support programs for U.S. military operations around the world. They came to the conclusion that this was a good idea, and you began what would turn into a massive privatization initiative that would eventually direct billions of U.S. tax dollars to Halliburton and its subsidiary. Barely two years after you finished your service as Secretary of Defense, you became the CEO of Halliburton. Yet, when you were asked about the money you received from Halliburton -- $44 million for five year's work -- you said, "I tell you that the government had absolutely nothing to do with it." How do you define the words "absolutely nothing"?
7.) No corporation has been more closely associated with the invasion of Iraq than Halliburton. The company, which you served as CEO before joining the administration, moved from No.19 on the U.S. Army's list of top contractors before the Iraq war began to No. 1 in 2003. Last year, alone, the company pocketed $4.2 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars. You said when asked about Halliburton during a September 2003 appearance on "Meet the Press" that you had "severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest." Yet, you continue to hold unexercised options for 233,000 shares of Halliburton stock, and since becoming vice president you have on an annual basis collected deferred compensation payments ranging from $162,392 to $205,298 from Halliburton. A recent review by the Congressional Research Service describes deferred salary and stock options of the sort that you hold as "among those benefits described by the Office of Government Ethics as 'retained ties' or 'linkages' to one's former employer." In the interest of ending the debate about whether Halliburton has received special treatment from the administration, would you be willing to immediately surrender any claims to those stock options and to future deferred compensation in order to make real your claim that you have "severed all my ties with the company."
8.) You have been particularly aggressive in attacking the qualifications of John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, to serve as commander-in-chief. Yet, you received five draft deferments during the 1960s, which allowed you to avoid serving in Vietnam. In 1989, when you were nominated to serve as Secretary of Defense, you were asked why you did not serve in Vietnam and you told the Senate that you "would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called." Yet, in an interview that same year, you told the Washington Post that, "I had other priorities in the sixties than military service." Which was it -- "proud to serve" or "other priorities"?
9.) Nelson Mandela says he worries about you serving in the vice presidency because, "He opposed the decision to release me from prison." As a member of Congress you did vote against a resolution expressing the sense of the House that then President Ronald Reagan should demand that South Africa's apartheid government grant the immediate and unconditional release of Mandela and other political prisoners. You have said you voted the way you did in the late 1980s because "the ANC was then viewed as a terrorist organization." Do you still believe that Mandela and others who fought for an end to apartheid were terrorists? If so, are you proud to have cast votes that helped to prolong Mandela's imprisonment and the apartheid system of racial segregation and discrimination?
10.) Mandela has said that, to his view, you are "the real president of the United States." Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said of the first years of the Bush presidency that, "Cheney and a handful of others had become 'a Praetorian guard' that encircled the President." O'Neill has also argued that the White House operates the way it does "because this is the way that Dick likes it." Why do you think that so many people, including veterans of this administration, seem to think that it is you, rather than George W. Bush, who is running the country?
- John Nichols, www.thenation.com