So? Facts are irrelevant these days. Reality is passé. To make it in the new world, you must place the 'greater truth' ahead of such terrible things as solid evidence.

True enough. The more damning claims are the "appearance of mispropriety"; the appearance that Halliburton got special treatment because it was the Dickster's old stomping ground, the "millions" in fines paid for impropriety. The investigations of bribery, and so forth. Basically, the attempt to make him look like Vice President Lay.

Will "that dog hunt?" You got me. My sense was this Enron stuff has sort have been pushed out of the public conscience as Iraq's gotten worse.

Much like the "Iraq was developing WMD, had a relationship with Al Qaeda" etc, etc, perception is more important than truth. Which is why so many people still believe we found WMDs in Iraq.

Rude Pundit is out of control! Have a look at this brilliant piece What Edwards Should Say (Rude Version)

Iraq was developing WMD

Strictly speaking, Iraq's WMD programs remained in various stages ranging from dismantlement to hibernation. This was largely a result of crippling sanctions and economic pressures from the international community.

These are the facts. Also among the facts is the reality that the international pressures and sanctions were lifting on Iraq, as European and Russian companies pushed to do business with them. A revitalization of Iraq would have led to a revitalization of his weapons programs, there is no doubt.

moebius, I realize that reasonable people can diagree about Iraq, but you are spouting sound bite rhetoric that lacks both nuance and any effort to provide context or information.

So who exactly is pushing the wrong "perception?" Arguing that Iraq was a threat? Or arguing that they weren't?

As for cronyism, you're right, that charge still stands. But I'll give you a hint about something that could bring that sentiment down a notch - go take a look at Halliburton's operating profit/loss for the last 6 quarters, and go find me 5 more companies with the range of services provided by Halliburton.

Bush is talking in Penn. right now and he is rocking! I don't know who wrote this speech, but whoever did needs to be the ONLY one writing from now on!

If that's the text that Cheney wanted us to see, it has very little to do with the preceding points made by Edwards that he was responding to.

I mentioned Halliburton a few minute ago in connection with the $87 billion, and you raised it in this question. This is relevant, because he was pushing for lifting sanctions when he was CEO of Halliburton. 

Here's why we didn't think Halliburton should have a no-bid contract. 

While he was CEO of Halliburton, they paid millions of dollars in fines for providing false information on their company, just like Enron and Ken Lay. 

They did business with Libya and Iran, two sworn enemies of the United States. 

They're now under investigation for having bribed foreign officials during that period of time.

Not only that, they've gotten a $7.5 billion no-bid contract in Iraq, and instead of part of their money being withheld, which is the way it's normally done, because they're under investigation, they've continued to get their money.

Edwards was talking about actions by Halliburton under Cheney's leadership, while the so-called rebuttal that Cheney trots out by referring us to factcheck.org is all about Cheney having/not having any financial incentives related to Halliburton after he became vice president.

Edwards was talking about actions by Halliburton under Cheney's leadership

That's a good point. Sigh. I suppose I'll have to go fact check Edwards now ...

Considering that Edwards also stated that Cheney claimed links between "9-11" and Iraq, not "Al Qaeda" and Iraq, for example, I'm also not willing to gamble that the assertions that you mention are correct or incorrect.

The real story is that Dick Cheney is a pathological liar. His best line was "I never met you before you walked on this stage."

There is ample video proof showing otherwise.

I guess Cheney is doing his best CBS imitation.

The real story is that Dick Cheney is a pathological liar.

You might have made a point about a Cheney error - unfortunatey, you fail to provide supporting evidence and the particular phrasing of your statement changed the narrative to "Geek, Esq. is a hyperbolic ballbuster."

See how that works?

Check out the video (yeah yeah I know) at: http://www.democrats.org

Completely damning. You only have to watch the first 20 seconds or so.

Edwards also was present when Cheney swore Liddy Dole in.

And they met on the set of "Meet the Press."

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20041006_463.html

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."

There you go, that was much better. One of Cheney's great sound bites is fact-checked.

You can't take out this one, though:

"If they couldn't stand up to the pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can we expect them to standup to Al Qaeda?"

Sorry for not including it in the first post--I assumed that the story had circulated wider than it had. The old truism about what ASSUME spells still holds true.

I'm still hung up on this "no-bid" contract charge. Isn't Halliburton on GSA's federal supply schedule? I have government customers that say they'd buy our system if we were on GSA because then they wouldn't have to go through the odious RFP process. When you have time you can step outside of GSA, say for a new air traffic control system. But there was hardly the time for a process like that here. GSA contractors are well vetted and continually audited for price gouging.

Please, let me know if I'm wrong.

If John Kerry can whip Al Qaeda's ass half as well as he whipped Howard Dean's, America will be a much safer place.

If John Kerry can whip Al Qaeda's ass half as well as he whipped Howard Dean's, America will be a much safer place.

People that blow up children and decapitate hostages don't get whipped by cynical political prevarication.

Sorry.

As you pointed out, the analogy between Howard Dean and Al Qaeda is a poor one--politics and terrorism are two different kinds of conflict.

Here's one for you:

If George W. Bush can't stand up to the Saudi financiers of terror and spreaders of hateful Islamist rhetoric, how can we expect him to stand up to Al Qaeda?

If George W. Bush can't stand up to the Saudi financiers of terror and spreaders of hateful Islamist rhetoric, how can we expect him to stand up to Al Qaeda?

Just because armies are not pouring into Saudi Arabia doesn't mean that nothing is happening. There are members of this administration in key positions of influence that want to gut the Saudis like a fish. I rest assured that there is quite a bit of activity going on behind the scenes, typefied and exacerbated by:

1. The recent terror attacks within the kingdom

2. The kingdom's response and recent successes in killing terrorists.

I also get sick with the argument, but most of the hijackers were Saudi! As if extremism isn't diffuse through the Muslim world, and as if America would be a target for invasion if 15 of our citizens committed an atrocity without sanction. Charities have been cut off, funding diverted and political pressure applied. Aside from mobilizing the 3rd ID out of Iraq, what would you suggest?

Most of the attacks on Bush lack this basic information: what isn't being done that should be, and what is your reference material that proves this?

PS - Michael Moore does not count as reference information.

Oh please. Kerry's ad's never claim he was getting a kickback. However, he still does have stock options, and he still recieves payments from haliburton. Haliburton's stock goes up, cheney makes more money.

Even if he donated that to charity, that would represent an ENORMOUS tax break to him, as it would all get written off. Technically, if his stock options were valued at $8 million as the article states, that could save over 2.5 million in in taxes.

Also, once he leaves office, he is no longer bound by any of this. Haliburton is surely going to take him back. He refusal to divest himself of his Haliburton ties proves he has some consideration of doing so.

If Dick Cheney wanted to be above board on this he would have divested, and stopped his compensation, which frankly he doesn't even need. He wouldn't have lied on multiple occasion and claimed he recieved nothing from haliburton, and had no financial ties to the company.

The argument that Cheney wasn't vice president because he had only been elected, and hadn't been sworn in, isn't going to hold much water with the public. If I won the governorship, and an enormous state contractor gave me 1.6 million dollars between the election and my swearing in, and I in turn gave that company a 7 billion dollar no-bid contract, I think people would have a right to be suspicious. I think my political opponents wouldn't just have a right, but an OBLIGATION to point out the improprieties. Especially if that company had a long history of dishonest money handling, as haliburton does. The idea that "well, he was being paid off before he was sworn in" just isn't much of an argument.

Just a quote from Factcheck.org until they get their site back up.

Cheney got our domain name wrong -- calling us "FactCheck.com" -- and wrongly implied that we had rebutted allegations Edwards was making about what Cheney had done as chief executive officer of Halliburton. 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.

And as far as Howard Dean, has it really gotten so bad that the Republicans are going after him again? It's a silly accusation anyway. I'm sure Kerry did vote against the $87 billion (a protest vote) because Dean was eating up all the anti-war following. So in essence, he was playing to his base by opposing something that doesn't have a chance of failing on principle. This sounds surprisingly similar to Bush supporting a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage even though it doesn't have a prayer. Hmm. In either case, so what? It's Washington for crying out loud, that's what these guys do.

just the second para is the quote

The only part of your argument that resonates is Also, once he leaves office, he is no longer bound by any of this. Haliburton is surely going to take him back., or by extension, he wants to help his buddies out for material gain.

But if you employ innuendo and speculative logic about motivation, as you are doing, what is Dick Cheney's real motivation, as a multi-millionaire many times over, to do something that's bad for the country in order to make more dough.

the fact remains that Halliburton was very selectly suited (on paper) to meet the variety of needs in Iraq. Go find me 5 other companies that have the breadth of services and are complaining about the no-bid contract. Come back, and we'll talk.

I think that many people that aren't rich vastly overestimate the prioritization of greed among the super-wealthy, especially individuals with decades of public service.

mantis -

you mean the first paragraph? I'll cite it, but you are unclear.

Well, technically the second paragraph, if you count that first line as a paragraph.

The problem with democrats are they are Partsian Hypocrites when it comes to Halliburton.

Any of you folks ever heard of Fluor-Daniel?

Probably not, I would surmise, but they do a lot of foreign contracts around the world in oil, power plants, construction, etc.... They have been getting shafted by Halliburton for DECADES. Yes decades.

SO answer me this democrats.

When Clinton was in office, why did Halliburton get no-bid contracts in kosovo?

Please point me to the same democratic uproar over Halliburton in that time frame.

Did any of you even bother to read about Halliburton and the Government Contracts they have been getting for DECADES, yes, DECADES....?

The Vice President by LAW, get it dems, law, had to sever ALL Ties with Halliburton prior to taking office.

In addition, BY LAW, he must submit all investments into a blind trust, which he cannot manage, or make investment decisions on, hence the word blind. look it up if you dare to question that.

The $400,000 was part of a deferred compensation plan, and unless you even know what that means, it means Money or benefits, like stock, stock options, etc, is paid at some point in the future but earned when it is agreed to. It was most likely part of a Contract that Cheney had with Halliburton, and Halliburton would be in breach if it was not paid.

The $400,000 was already earned, prior to taking office, and no matter what halliburton did, that is the amount to be paid, and no other compensation was due to him based upon any future performance of the company, unless you can PROVE otherwise, which you can't, because dems don't collect eveidence, they lie about it, like Clinton did, making it ok of course.

It is about time this issue was put to rest concerning the Vice President, and we can talk all day long about how screwed up Hallliburton is now, but unless there is a specific company that can do what they do, and you or someone else goes to read the actual contracts the Government agreed to, and unless that company is also a United sattes domiciled Company, and not some French company, you don't know jack about Halliburton, it's business model, and it's ability to perform contracts that no other US Company can possibly do.

And those are the Facts concerning Halliburton, and a little explanation on some contract stuff.

Regards,
Sonar5

Did he need to? NO

Did undecideds have a favourable impression of Cheney before the debate? NO

Are their impressions of Cheney likely to have been changed by this debate? NO

So the net result is a wash and on to the next debate. The one thing undecideds might take away from this debate is that Cheney - Kerry would be a better face-off and given the chimps performance in the 1st debate, why isn't Cheney president? or is he?

You know I'm right!

The public saw the same Cheney they have allways seen, but last week they saw an image of the president that's been hinted at but carefully hidden from public view. If we see more of that or worse, having a heavywight VP isn't gonna save him.

Cheney was powerfull, he wiped the floor with Bush!

That's the conclusion most undecideds are likely to take from last nights debate.

mantis -

You are trying to tell me that factcheck put out the following quote:

And as far as Howard Dean, has it really gotten so bad that the Republicans are going after him again?

No, that part is me.

"If they couldn't stand up to the pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can we expect them to standup to Al Qaeda?"

You see, grabbing onto this is the kind of desperation I love to see from you!

One could easily argue "well, he crushed Howard Dean, its hard to see how he failed to stand up to him"

But more fundamentally, it shows you guys refuse to accept the simple truth that has been laid out for you over and over again - Kerry has never flip flopped on Iraq.

He voted to give the president the authority to go to war, because the president claimed that he could use Coersive Diplomacy better if the Congressional safety was taken off. He said he would pursue the dimplomatic courses fully, that he had the proof to convince the world of the threat, and he would get the inspectors in. He said force would be a last resort, and we would have the backing of the world if we had to use it.

Bush lied. Bush wouldn't allow the inpsectors to finish their job, failed to convince the world of Husseins supposed threat, and rushed into war with the 4th ID still in boats and most soldiers without protective armor.

8 months later, he finally goes back to congress to get body armor for the troops. But, he refuses to pay for it - it can only be charged to the US deficit, so our great grandchildren can pay for it. Kerry voted to authorize the body armor, but voted against charging for what should have been paid for, and voted against the reconstruction money that the president held the troops body armor hostage against by refusing to separate the bills.

1. Bush talks a great deal about democracy and human rights. His friends the Saudis (and this was well known before Moore's propaganda piece) have an absolutely abhorrent human rights record. They're the Taliban with oil. Yet, they are described as a moderate Islamic state.

The nation that refers to "the Jews" as the descendants of monkeys and pigs wasn't named to State's list of religiously intolerant nations until a month ago. When this was done, the Bush administration made clear that they didn't really mean it:

"" These designations are ones that we make with a certain degree of sorrow because these are valued relationships, particularly in a case such as Saudi Arabia. But the US Congress has laid out for us a standard that we feel we must follow."

Secretary of State Colin Powell likewise did his best to allay Saudi fears. "This is not to punish them, or in any way to show displeasure," he assured Al Arabiya, the Arab satellite channel. "One should not see this as anything but two friends talking to one another about a problem of mutual concern.""

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/09/23/saudi_arabias_religious_hatred/

Heaven forbid they show displeasure with the Saudi entity's record.

2. I'm going to assume that you acknowledge that the Saudis spread the poison of Wahhabi Islam throughout the world, and that this ideology is behind a great deal of Islamofascist terrorism. What has Bush done to rein this in? I would provide a link to support my answer, but it is very hard to prove a negative--i.e. that he has done nothing on this subject.

3. I would link to the 9/11 report by Congress and its discussion of Saudi links to the 9/11 terrorists, but they were redacted at the insistence of the Bush administration.

4. The terror and hatred that the Saudis have exported for years have, as you noted, come home to roost. Before that, they were more than happy to turn a blind eye to the support for AQ inside the kingdom, so long as they kept the terror outside the kingdom. Nothing the Bush administration has done or said has caused them to come around.

5. Check out this piece by Daniel Pipes, not a beloved figure to the left:

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/980

Here,

Just a quote from Factcheck.org until they get their site back up:

''Cheney got our domain name wrong -- calling us "FactCheck.com" -- and wrongly implied that we had rebutted allegations Edwards was making about what Cheney had done as chief executive officer of Halliburton. 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.''

And as far as Howard Dean, has it really gotten so bad that the Republicans are going after him again? It's a silly accusation anyway. I'm sure Kerry did vote against the $87 billion (a protest vote) because Dean was eating up all the anti-war following. So in essence, he was playing to his base by opposing something that doesn't have a chance of failing on principle. This sounds surprisingly similar to Bush supporting a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage even though it doesn't have a prayer. Hmm. In either case, so what? It's Washington for crying out loud, that's what these guys do.

Boy, am I overwhelmed with trolls. At least some of you are being somewhat civil, but I can't fight all of you all day, just a warning.

Tommy Paine - you are banned because you are such a raving prick in your delivery, and you've called me dishonest on another thread. "Raving prickhood" aside, I'll leave you with this: watch this video. Putting aside the mood music and your skepticism of any source, the dates and video of Kerry speaking are accurate and relatively contextual.

Your assertion that Kerry does not flip-flop, and that Bush "lies," is in fact ... a lie. Or at least a disturbing delusion.

Your assertion that Kerry does not flip-flop, and that Bush "lies," is in fact ... a lie. Or at least a disturbing delusion.

Can't we agree that they both 'flip-flop' and that ALL politicians lie, or mislead if you prefer.

Geek, Esq -

I can't get into this now, but suffice it to say that those against Bush have got to pick a mode of argument - either selective applications of Realpolitik are ok, or they aren't. A common Bush criticism is that we can't apply drastic measures to right every wrong in the world, but that in fact seems what you advocate with the Saudis.

I'm sick of this. Come up with the exact measures that you recommend for dealing with every state sponsor of terrorism in the world, type it up in Word and e-mail it to me as an attachment, because this topic may be too complicated for truncated sound bites on a comment board.

This argument wears me out. Frustratingly elective cognition.

mantis - thank you for clarifying. That is the first paragraph. I'll wait till I can verify its authenticity and update the post.

Bill--

When I change jobs to one where I get paid full time for this stuff, I'll be more than happy to send it to you.

Till then, I'll just comment that I think the Saudi entity is at the core of global Islamist terrorism, and a "big picture" approach to fighting terrorism that doesn't squarely address the Saudi entity as a problem is sorely lacking.

For what it's worth, I think the approach to global terrorism is a classic example of the party of no ideas ("let's be pragmatic and fight the terrorists in a smart and tough way"--gee, that's inspiring) vs. the party of really, really, really bad ideas ("let's fight Islamist terror by wiping out a stable, secular regime while coddling the #1 source of Islamist hatred in the world").

The bottom line, for me, is that Kerry and Edwards don't have the problem completely figured out, and they realize it. Bush doesn't have a solution either, but he's too damn stubborn to ever realize it--even when the facts on the ground demonstrate it.

Geek -

I disagree with your specific assessment of the Bush Admin's non-"solution," but I don't think that your conclusion is in any way unreasonable. it is however so cynical as to possibly be counterproductive.

As an aside, anyone that asserts unequivocal confidence about what the right answer is either way is either stupid or lying.

Can't we agree that they both 'flip-flop' and that ALL politicians lie, or mislead if you prefer.

Yes, but Kerry has an extra-special gift for it, on the most serious issue of our time.

Factcheck.org appears to be back up now, and has dissected some less-than-honest responses from both VP candidates, though it seems to be more negative about Cheney than Edwards.

That's why candidates shouldn't cite websites that they don't control (assuming they give the right address-thank god we weren't told to go to whitehouse.com)!

Didn't Kerry tell us once to go to "truth.com", "if there is one"? Jeez.

Oy, if I wasn't at work, I'd help try to help you out Bill. I know how it is to be attacked by trolls without backup.

Yeah, it's up but loading very slowly.

I'll email the full content to you when it comes up if that helps.

And going through the article, the Halliburton stuff is largely more aggressive against Edwards than Cheney although they fairly raise a couple points.

I think FactCheck is just pissed that a candidate used them to make a political point and crashed their server for over 12 hours. They try to be independent and bust politicians' balls and here Darth Vader is plugging them approvingly?! Just too good.

You can't take out this one, though:

"If they couldn't stand up to the pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can we expect them to standup to Al Qaeda?"

Easy. Seeing as this particular motivation for Kerry's vote is based entirely on Cheney speculating - and Cheney has yet to demonstrate that he is a mind-reader - we can always just ask Kerry why he voted this way. He favored a similar proposal, but differred on who should pay for it.

If opposing this particular appropriations bill is such a big deal, then what does a Bush supporter make of Bush threatening to veto this very bill?

There is a truth.com, but it's far from interesting.

OT: there's a website that I always get a chuckle out of:

www.despair.com

I recommend it.

I noticed all of the examples of when Edwards was present with Cheney are ceremonial in nature. None are for votes. Just an observation.

Maybe the site didn't crash but was the subject of a DNS attack.

Hopefully the site will make a statment regarding this outage.

Bill,

"Sigh. I suppose I'll have to go fact check Edwards now ...

Considering that Edwards also stated that Cheney claimed links between "9-11" and Iraq, not "Al Qaeda" and Iraq, for example, I'm also not willing to gamble that the assertions that you mention are correct or incorrect."

No need to factcheck them yourself, though you can if you wish, of course - but factcheck.org has now added factcheck of Edwards' statements. He got some details wrong, but was right for the most part:

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. And in fact, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Aug. 3 that Halliburton will pay $7.5 million to settle a matter that dates back to 1998, when Cheney was CEO.

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. The SEC said Cheney "provided sworn testimony and cooperated willingly and fully in the investigation."

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 that it violated the U.S. ban on exports to Libya and said it would pay $3.81 million in fines. Those violations dated back to 1987 and 1990.

While Cheney is assailed for Halliburton, people should be made aware of all of the corruption at the UN, which is the organization that Kerry and Edwards wants us to rely upon for our security and peace...

As for Halliburton, this is a fine company with a distinguished reputation. Any issues with them are just nitpicking; any large company with such huge contracts will come under scrutiny from time to time for supposed overcharges, etc. Bottom line: Halliburton has a very clean record for a company its size.

I'll take Halliburton over the UN anyday for honesty and ethical behavior.

Another Thought: There seems to be nothing that could bother you about this Administration. You are willing to forgive anything, aren't you? If I told you Cheney was a sodomist, you would say, "at least he's not involved with the U.N. and windsurfing". Shameful, really shameful.

Thank God for the WSJ! I am so sick of this Halliburton canard. Wait'll my husband sees this! he just won't let up on the H-word. I feel positively like Mary Matalin sometimes.

When I heard Halliburton was really Brown & Root I understood everything. They are huge, and have expertise like the average person just can't imagine. Yet the Dems get so much traction out of this one. Hitler was right about the Big Lie wasn't he?

carol: What the heck are you saying in your post. I'm not following any of it -- it seems out of context with everything else above it. I tried to understand, but I didn't have the patience to figure it out.

I find it ironic that France is investigating Halliburton for bribery, when it was apparantly up to its eyeballs in the oil for food scandal, which begs the question why after two debates that involved foriegn policy, the UN and oil for food scandal hasn't been brought up once.