We’ve always been bothered by Dick Cheney’s September 14, 2003 statement on Meet the Press when he claimed he didn’t even know who Joe Wilson was. To wit:
RAW STORY seems to have been curious about the same thing, as they reported today that, according to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s 22-page indictment last week of Scooter Libby, Cheney was clearly lying when he made the above statement. The indictment shows that, in fact, Cheney had already attended meetings — prior to his Meet the Press appearance — where the question of what to do about Wilson’s statements had already been discussed.
On the more direct point of whether Cheney actually knew who Joe Wilson was (whether or not he’d been discussed in recent White House meetings) The BRAD BLOG received a quick email response on Friday evening from Wilson in reply to our question on the matter. Wilson pointed out how Cheney’s statement could only be perceived as true if one were to apply the strictest Clintonian-like interpretation of the English language to Cheney’s statement.
Wilson explained that what Cheney said was “technically true,” in that “we have
never met or laid eyes on each other.”
However, the presumption that Cheney didn’t know Joe Wilson would strains all credulity and common sense. As Wilson pointed out in his email, Cheney was Secretary of Defense during the first Gulf War when Wilson was Acting U.S. Ambassador in charge of the Embassy in Iraq where he sheltered 800 Americans who were held captive as “guests” of Saddam Hussein and not allowed to leave the country just prior to the war.
Wilson, indeed, was the last American to meet with Hussein before the war began. His courageous service for America in standing up to the tyrant (he actually wore a noose around his neck for one of the meetings with Saddam!) could hardly have gone unnoticed by Defense Secretary Cheney. Wilson’s courageous service at that point in American history has been all but ignored, conveniently, by the wingnut apologists on the right who have taken the current White House’s lead in hoping to destroy the distinguished reputation and career of Wilson along with his wife’s in order to shore up their own trumped up case for war.
That fact alone demonstrates the lengths to which this White House and Cheney himself have gone — and continue to go — in order to obfuscate the truth to try and protect themselves. As RAW STORY’s article points, “Wilson was the only line of communication between Washington and Saddam Hussein. The White House held daily briefings with Wilson, and Cheney sat in on a majority of those briefings.”
And yet, Cheney was able to go on air and “mislead” with a straight face both Tim Russert and the American people by uttering the phrase, “I don’t know Joe Wilson.”
As to whether or not the Wilsons will file some kind of Civil Suit against the players in the White House responsible for completely destroying Valerie’s distinguished 20-year career in the Agency as an expert on Weapons of Mass Destruction, Wilson told The BRAD BLOG there have been “no decisions…yet” in that regard.
Finally, if you missed 60 Minutes’ report last night examining the damage done by the unprecedented White House outing of a covert CIA asset, Crooks & Liars has the full video. We recommend it.
UPDATE: Jeralyn Merrit from Talk Left emails with a pointer to a report she filed in July on this with a lot of additional detail. In her report, she also reminds us of Cheney’s claim, during the Vice-Presidential Debate, that he never met John Edwards — along with a link to the photo that shows he lied about that as well. We suppose “restoring honor and integrity to the White House” must be a full time job for these folks.
{Thanks to BRAD BLOG contributor “Kira” for research on this story.}
Cheney COULDN’T judge Joe Wilson harshly, because their former boss, George H.W. Bush, had already praised Wilson effusively and publicly, and Cheney couldn’t contradict his new boss, who just happens to be his earlier boss’ son.
Cheney COULDN’T judge Wilson affirmatively, because that would 1) prove he knew him, and 2) cause a conflict with what Wilson was saying and writing about uranium/Niger.
So all Cheney COULD do was claim he didn’t know Joe Wilson and therefore shouldn’t judge him. Totally dishonest.
"The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight."
-Dick Cheney to John Edwards Oct 5, 2004
http://www.drudgereport.com/ce.jpg
2001
I suppose another way of looking at it is that the VP is having some serious memory issues, and therefore should resign immediately… :rolleyes:
You mean THAT Joe Wilson.
Edwards’ back is clearly towards Cheney. You can’t "meet" that way, in fact it’s highly disrespectful of the Veep.
😛
…Flamethrower yea right
maybe it’s a GOP thing to have Alzheimers. Reagan, Heston and now Cheney. The sad thing is that this idiot is the sharpest tack in the White House.
So, next time Cheney is on Meet the Press, Tim Russert will ask him, "Why did you lie to me on September 14, 2003?" Right? 🙁
They lie as easily as they breathe.
As far back as 1990, Cheney and Bush Sr. were lying us into war with Iraq. Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in mid-September that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening to roll into Saudi Arabia.
Soviet satellite images of the same area, taken at the same time, show no Iraqi troops were visible near the Saudi border–just empty desert.
Get to know Cheney….the SMOKING GUN of this corrupt adminstration:
CLICK
Along with his serious memory issues, let’s hope he has some serious heart issues soon too. He’s a waste of skin
I just have my fingers crossed. If Fitzgerald is really determined about this investigation, he will get much, much deeper.
I mean, his fingers seem awfully close to Cheney already.
Wilson explained that what Cheney said was "technically true," in that "we have never met or laid eyes on each other."
Well, then Cheney was telling the truth.
And it was Joe Wilson who was lying when he implied in his op-ed piece that Cheney sent him to Niger.
Nobody. I mean nobody could lie the way Clinton did.
Someone should remind Mr. Chung about what Tom Brokaw said. He’s been around a while, since long before W. and Slick Willie were in the White House, and he commented about the Libby/Russert matter.
Brokaw said this administration is the worst he’s seen in terms of honesty. That means worse than Clinton’s, doesn’t it? Clearly Brokaw was angry about Libby’s efforts to pin responsbility on Russert for outing Valerie Plame, and about Cheney’s deliberately misleading remark, "I don’t know Joe Wilson" (when he’d already discussed Wilson and his trip to Niger several times and was already planning to undermine him through his wife).
The irony about all this is that the media have actually treated the Bush administration with kid gloves, though that’s changing fast. They never checked out WMD (except for Judy Miller’s pathetic reliance on Chalabi). They still haven’t exposed two fraudulent elections (still believe they were honest, Mr. Chung?). The media haven’t probed Cheney’s top-secret energy commission that apparently arranged no-bid contracts for Halliburton and other corporate pals of Cheney’s to rebuild Iraq. They asked Bush about his relationship with Ken Lay (who stayed at the White House twice) and let Bush get away with saying Lay was really Ann Richards’ friend. They’ve ignored the Jeff Gannon disgrace. They showed us photos from Abu Ghraib, but we still don’t know the extent of Rumsfeld’s guilt. Huge questions still surround 9/11, and the press won’t go there, nor will it probe Bush family connections with the bin Laden family. They stopped investigating Bush’s National Guard record when CBS screwed up, even though the facts of the case weren’t affected by the bad documents, yet they took the Swift Boat veterans at face value without even probing. We still don’t know the exact death toll in Iraq; is it 2,000 or a much higher number?
The Bush team has rewarded a lenient press corps with lies and half-truths. It appears the honeymoon is over at last.
The relationship of the MSM to the white house is manipulator and manipulatee (akin to screwor and screwee).
I mean it is clear they do not have any self respect when they allow bold faced lies to get by.
Remember when now head of the world bank, "whats it all about Wolfie" Wolfwits, said the Iraq war would take 90 days and pay for itself?
The MSM simply has no self respect and little public respect in its recent history.
Ok, Ok, Ok … I hold out more hope … maybe …
"The annual worldwide press freedom index from Reporters Without Borders shows the United States, which is supposedly spreading freedom and liberty throughout the world, is in a fast decline regarding the freedom of its own press.
The report ranked the United States in 44th place, an atomic drop from a favorable position of 22nd held last year, and from a handsome 17th place in 2002" (link here).
Don’t be so dense Mr. Chung. Wilson NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER said Cheney sent him anywhere. This is his EXACT quote. Why don’t you do some reading for a change, asshat.
"In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney’s office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990’s. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president’s office."
Joe Wilson in "his op-ed piece"
Mr. Chung…saying the CIA sent me in regards to an inquiry coming from Cheney’s OFFICE can nowhere near be considered Cheney sent me. Unless you are illiterate or just plain watch nothing but Fox News.
Mr. Chung doesn’t write like an illiterate. But it does seem he passes along lies and distortions, as facts, quite liberally.
This is characteristic of Fox Network devotees and Rush Limbaugh’s listeners. They hear a pro-Bush or anti-liberal talking point (such as "Wilson falsely accused Cheney of sending him to Niger"), and seize it and throw it on the table. They think they’re engaged in debate, but acting as a conduit for falsehoods doesn’t make one a debater, it makes one a fool.
In this case, even if Wilson had said Cheney sent him to Niger, it would be a simple error of fact, not a lie. Knowing who sent Wilson to Niger is a tangential issue; the crux of the matter is what was done to Wilson and his wife after he returned.
Cheney famous last words:
"They never talk about all those times when I tell the truth".
DeLay:
"They never talk about all those laws I don’t break".
These guys got culcha …
Jose.. Cheney, when asking the CIA to "investigate the documents" started the chain that had Wilson headed to Niger.
And, you dont have to "see someone eye to eye" to know them, that’s a piss-poor attempt at dodging the truth. I’ve never "met" the President, but for me to say "I don’t know George H. W. Bush" would be a lie. I DO know the man, in at least SOME definitions of the word. Trying to play this bullshit game of "technically true" is just as bad as Clinton saying "define IS".. only, Clinton was dodging a blowjob, Cheney is dodging treason..
Cheney -also- lied when he said he had "no financial interest in Halliburton", yet he has STOCK OPTIONS which went up from ~$240,000 to near $8,000,000 now.. No financial interest? are you fuckin kidding me?
I must take issuewith the statement:
‘And yet, Cheney was able to go on air and "mislead" with a straight face both Tim Russert and the American people by uttering the phrase, "I don’t know Joe Wilson."’
Russert in no way is being misled! He willingly goes where ever the "powers that be" desire him to go. There is plenty of slack in the leash that leads to the ring in his "brown nose". One should not be fooled by his boyish smile and seeming charm. He is no less a stooge than the any of the corporate bought eunuchs posing as investigative journalists.
The very fact that he has a Sunday AM talk show on a major TV Network should be sufficient evidence that he is part of the mislabeled Liberal Media. An darticle in the February 24, 2003 issue of The Nation stated ". . . William Kristol, without a doubt the most influential Republican/neoconservative publicist in America today, has come clean on this issue. "I admit it," he told a reporter. "The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."’
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030224/alterman2
At one time time term "pundit’ described a learned person, an expert or authority. Now because punditry has been attributed to so many pompous, pontificating Pooh Bah-wannabees that the term is now used pejoratively and to be described as a member of the "punditocracy" is not indicative of a praisewothy position.
This is my first trip to the BRAD BLOG. It was well woth the trip. Keep fighting the good fight!
Cheney is a snake in the weeds,can’t be trusted,worst voting record in Congress,
Cheney is the Pits!!!
Please don’t call it a "Clintionian" lie. It was a lie. Clinton didn’t lie except the one occasion when every gentleman is allowed to lie – to keep his girlfriend and his wife separated.
Thank you John B. Mendolusky #20 for your excellent post and link. Welcome and please comment more often now that you’ve found Bradblog!
I agree with your comment, #22 Maezeppa. The neoCONs went after Clinton for anything they could find — it was a vendetta.
Try this link In Defense of Clinton:
C. W. Swinney is a retired business executive who lives in North Carolina. He voted for Nixon, Carter, Reagan twice, and then G.W.H. Bush. He says he was "apolitical" until 1991, when he "happened on Haynes Johnson Sleepwalking Through History book in a local library." He was shocked at what he learned about Reagan, and has since become enthralled with Bill Clinton and become a historian of 1980’s and 1990’s.
He has over 100 hours of video on Clinton speaking, (including all his State of the Union addresses), has collected over 50,000 pages from print media and and has purchased over 500 books on the1980’s and 1990’s.
Swinney challenges Clinton’s critics:
Bill Clinton inherited a mess after the "most scurrilous administration in history", per Haynes Johnson in his Sleepwalking Through History on the eight Reagan years, and his Vice President’s 4 year extension of those years.
He has assembled a list of 75 members of Reagan’s administration who were charged with criminal behavior. Others list as many as 245 who were investigated and 145 who were charged with crimes by Justice and "Independent Counsels".
See plenty on the very REAL, but largely unreported Public Affairs scandals of the Reagan – Bush administrations, at our http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org pages.
1. Republicans in Congress spent $110,000,000 trying to prove illegal activites. Result — One person was"convicted" of a "felony" commited while working in the Clinton administration. The evil fellow took $12,000 in trips to sporting events, etc. OIC Smaltzsmear concluded that they had been no "quid pro quo", i.e. no public benefit given in exchange for any gift given him. Yet, the man could not afford to fight the charges, so he pled guilty.
2. Newt Gingrich and CBO Director June O’Neill said Clinton budgets were honest. No b.s. like Bush who has lied several times over his budgets and tax cuts.
3. CW Swinney has most of Clinton’s speeches on Video and cannot locate a deliberate attempt to deceive the public regarding the public’s business. Not one.
4. He has all his state of the Union address transcripts, and many transcripts of speeches. He hasn’t found a single lie in them and has challenged Republicans or anyone to — show us one lie about public policy (i.e. a statement known to be untrue, spoken with intent to deceive) made by Bill Clinton. just one.
**CONTINUED AT LINK**
John B. Mendolusky #20
Where have you been so long … just got to this blog eh? Welcome.
You will find that here most bloggers have looked and looked and behold, there is no liberal media. Not in the United States.
The MSM in the US is decidedly conservative and right leaning. This conclusion should be determined not only by what is printed or reported, but by what is not printed nor reported.
And clearly most bloggers here are of the general opinion that the MSM is conservative, not liberal.
I trust that is what you intended by your use of the words "mislabeled Liberal Media".
Charlie Rangel’s saying Cheney needs to be checked for mental illness..Molly’s saying."Take Bush too."