Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog

And you know that latrine-cleaning -- or processes like it -- is one of those things that has to be done right or you pay a big price.

3. Mehlman knows that facts, or, properly, 'facts', are not important to the Bush administration.

That whole line of criticism struck me as likely to have been rehearsed, so I wouldn't assign much weight to option 1 under the "first mistake." I think there's a not-improbable possibility 4, involving a decision to 'brazen-it-out' (in combination with some of #2 and #3), that the adverse fact-checking would not outweigh the theatrical value of the zinger. The NPR "fact check" for the item this morning, which suggested that the VP's ceremonial duties don't involve the opposition much and didn't address the issue of the statement being baldly false, would seem to lend credence to this theory.

This does not seem important. Policy differences are important. Possibly Dick Cheney simply did not remember meeting John Edwards even if they were together a while. So what?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/06/opinion/06wed2.html

Cover-Up on Clean Air

The Bush administration made sure early on to fill key policy-making jobs in the important environmental agencies - Interior, Agriculture, Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency - with lawyers and lobbyists from the very industries the agencies are supposed to regulate. One person overlooked in this general ideological shakeup was Nikki Tinsley, a Clinton appointee who stayed on as the E.P.A.'s inspector general. Last week, much to the White House's dismay, Ms. Tinsley sharply criticized the administration for revoking an important rule governing pollution from power plants and other industrial sources, and for misinforming Congress about the potential impact of that decision on the government's ability to enforce the law.

Ms. Tinsley's rebuke was contained in a Congressionally mandated report tracing the administration's controversial decision to rescind a regulation known as New Source Review, which required companies like utilities to install new pollution-control technology whenever they upgraded their plants in ways that increased emissions. The rule was largely unused until the mid-1990's, when the Clinton administration and several Northeastern attorneys general actually started suing companies that had upgraded their plants without investing in the necessary controls. When Mr. Bush was elected, the companies sought relief from Mr. Bush's industry-friendly vice president, Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney put the heat on the environmental agency, which immediately began designing a new rule. The rule was developed in broad outline by mid-1992 and finalized late last year.

It is, in a word, toothless. Senior E.P.A. officials always knew it would be - that was the point - but they have insisted publicly that it would not interfere with investigations begun under the old rule. In June 2002, for instance, Jeffrey Holmstead, an assistant E.P.A. administrator and the main architect of the new rule, told the Senate that he had been assured by the "enforcement folks" at his agency and the Justice Department that there would not be a "negative impact on enforcement cases."

Suspecting otherwise - and suspecting Mr. Holmstead knew better - Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont ordered an internal investigation, which Ms. Tinsley has now produced. It confirms Mr. Leahy's worst fears. Even though the Northeastern states, as well as advocacy groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council, have temporarily blocked the new rule in court, its looming presence has badly undermined the government's ability to enforce old cases, let alone pursue new ones - exactly what the "enforcement folks" predicted from the start. More broadly, Ms. Tinsley said she could find no basis for the new rule in science or law, and urged her superiors to restore the old one.

No no Brad, you're going about this all wrong. Now, was there ever in the last three years any stories about Cheney having to check into the hospital for some vague reason or other? If not were there ever any rumors to that effect? (See we need a turd to work with here - see my posts in comments Wow! they really do lie about everything..- if we can't get a turd even a skidmark will do but we need something in the recent past.

See, the other possibilty is that Cheney suffered, I don't know, a mini-stroke? an aneuryism, early stages of Alzheimer's?

So then we say, which ticket is right for America's future? Which ticket is capable of delivering on what Americans really deserve? And always keeping that in view?

K/E?

Or the brain-damaged duo?

Cheney said it because he has gotten used to lying and getting away with it.

I thought your headline summary of the debate was bang on ("Wow! they really do lie about everything, don't they?").

Cheney's winning jabs were all lies, and surprisingly the media seems to be calling Cheney on them.

One of the most cited VP Debate points is the absence of GWB...cheney just didn't mention him much, and defended him effectly even less. Edwards, on the other hand was the good soilder, backing kerry up, building kerry up.

If the VP debate was to change the base of ewach party, then it was a draw. if it was to give the "undecided or leaners a reason to decide to lean further, the Edwards gave them more truth, more reasons and more appeal than the soon to be ex-VP.

And by the way, Gwen Ifill was awful. She did not moderate effectly, losing track twice and asking some silly questions (why not mentions their names?)

Other possiblities (alluded to above) would be that BC04 wants to get the meme "Edwards and Kerry have been absent" on the airways. The media time debunking Cheney is also covering the subject area, and if the past was a guide, BC04 probably expected the media to play the story something like "It is true that Cheney did meet Edwards once, but it is also true that Edwards has been absent X% of the time in the Senate."

I dunno. It was my favourite line of the night, too.

Maybe Mehlman is taking the "rats-from-a-sinking-ship" approach and is now actively cheering/working for the other side.

Cheney could have said that Kerry's and Edwards' Senate attendance was bad and left it there. But noooooo, he had to embellish. Old useful habit, meet political death wish.

Cheney, by the way, violated an old gentlemen's agreement. One doesn't criticize a senator's attendance when he's campaigning for president or VP. But then one also doesn't schedule votes one knows said candidates can't attend.

"a could nine hours"? Are you using speech recognition software?

Lise, Cheney's misstatement matters.

First, he was accusing Edwards of dishonesty. When one does that, one should be exceptionally certain of one's own facts.

Second, it was an intensely personal attack. What it expressed was a contempt for Edwards, a claim that Edwards was so unimportant and so uninvolved with the Senate that Cheney had not even seen him.

Sidebar: for anyone who understands what is going on in the Senate, Cheney only comes to preside when the Republicans think they are in danger of losing a vote, which is to say, almost never. The Republicans routinely schedule key votes for days that Kerry and Edwards are committed for the campaign trail. Naturally, this bollixes Senate operations. The Senate has been so politicized that it is almost incapable of functioning.

Finally, as has been commented above, Cheney says falsehoods because he knows he can get away with it. Had this been Bill Clinton or Al Gore, not one word they said after denying having met the opponent would have been taken seriously. Fortunately for the Republicans, they have all but total control over media.

And, yes, they do lie about everything.

Yes, they lie. Still, the GOP wins elections and currently controls substantially all the levers of government from the executive to local school boards in most municipalities. The US electorate is dead-set on playing the Platonic mob by voting for idiots, and I have been unable to stop them.

Having lived all my life in the DC area, Cheney's "I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session" immediately struck me as BS, since no VP is ever in the Senate except for tie-breaking votes and ceremonial occasions. This morning, news reports confirmed it -- Cheney is in the *House* most Tuesdays for Republican strategy sessions, where he would be extremely unlikely to see Edwards.

Sen. Edwards did a great job last night! He was too much the "Southern Gentleman" to use some of the zingers I would probably have thrown at Mr. Cheney. However, when the V.P. tried to denigrate the Senator's abilities to stand up to a challenge by saying that if Edwards couldn't stand up to Howard Dean, how could he stand up to the terrorists of the world, I really wish that Sen. Edwards had said: "Well, at least I don't have to worry tonight, because believe me Mr. Cheney, you're no Howard Dean!

I posted this elsewhere on Brad's blog but it looks like it belongs here:

Here's yet ANOTHER CHENEY LIE:

"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."

--Dick Cheney

So how many times did he preside over the Senate in the last 3-4 years?

2

I said Two

That's Two Times.

The correct answer is: Twice.

I think when we're through fact-checking Cheny's ass we're going to find that every single last word he uttered that night was a lie. Including, "and," "if," and "but."

-I'm so shrill only the cynics can hear me.

Kos has been all over this. Cheney presided over the Senate exactly two days during his term (2001-2004) - and was photographed with Edwards during one of them. And that wasn't memorable?

Kos has been all over this. Cheney presided over the Senate exactly two days during his term (2001-2004) - and was photographed with Edwards during one of them. And that wasn't memorable?

Cheney has been so often been described as possessing "gravitas" in such huge quantities that he has actually started to believe it himself. If you have "gravitas" your statements go unchallenged. Obviously no one in the White House, most particulary his intellectually challenged boss, challenges either his facts or conclusions. I suspect one gets used to be treated do defferentially. It must really hurt when the chickens come home to roost.

Cheney has been so often been described as possessing "gravitas" in such huge quantities that he has actually started to believe it himself. If you have "gravitas" your statements go unchallenged. Obviously no one in the White House, most particulary his intellectually challenged boss, challenges either his facts or conclusions. I suspect one gets used to be treated do defferentially. It must really hurt when the chickens come home to roost.

Experience counts; Cheney's experience is that he never has to pay a price for telling a lie.

Tell a lie on TV to 20 or 30 million people? Or worry about a fact-check in paragraph 17 running on page A20. Hmmmm. Easy call.

He and they will keep on doing it until 'Cheney Spouts Deceptions' is headlined above the fold in 3 out of four papers nationwide.

Right now it is all upside with hardly any downside.

#4: Mehlman and Cheney created the lies together and will defend them together. They have nothing but contempt for our government, the democratic process, the press, and the electorate. They demagogue the electorate, which is content to be held in contempt by the contemptuous, until their sons and daughters begin to be slaughtered in greater numbers in the Bush-Cheney Great War that is coming.

Or, perhaps, the sad little electorate has been so thoroughly and purposely trained to hate their government, hate taxes, and hate liberals by the alien Republican Party over the past generation, that a rougher reckoning than an election is nigh.

Certainly, the Hastert/Delay/Norquist/Cheney hate campaign is designed to make the country ungovernable in the case of a Kerry/Edwards win in November.

President George W. Bush approves all of the Cheney-Mehlman lies and the hate.

Some North Carolina fact-checked Edwards' roll call percentage: we answered more than 95% of them.

Ooop ... that's North Carolina newspaper.

Be fair to the BC04 staff Brad. A simple google search is not enough, because it is clogged with references to the campaign. e.g. Cheney AND Edwards And meet gives hundreds of stories about Cheney meets Edwards to debate.

They would have to have done a lexis-nexis search to find that there is proof that Cheney's claim is false and, hey, if you mix up .com and .org can you handle lexis-nexis ?

I watched TV news for about 1.5 hours today and I don't think I saw any mention of the fact that Cheney had actually met Edwards (facts? That's what blogs are for). It is not mentioned on the front page of cnn.com and cbsnews.com either. Mainstream media doesn't care, and the political blogs which would make a big deal out of this are preaching to the converted, not undecided swing voters.

I would propose a different possibility - this was a rehearsed line (I don't think Cheney could ad-lib that well) which was not fact checked because the Republicans correctly perceive that facts don't matter.

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