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Friday 25 June 2004
Cheney Dismisses Critic With Obscenity:
Clash With Leahy About Halliburton
By Helen Dewar and Dana Milbank
Washington Post
A brief argument between Vice President Cheney
and a senior Democratic senator led Cheney to
utter a big-time obscenity on the Senate floor
this week.
On Tuesday, Cheney,
serving in his role as president of the Senate,
appeared in the chamber for a photo session. A
chance meeting with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.),
the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee,
became an argument about Cheney's ties to
Halliburton Co., an international energy services
corporation, and President Bush's judicial
nominees. The exchange ended when Cheney offered
some crass advice.
"Fuck
yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat
from the presidency.
Leahy's spokesman, David
Carle, yesterday confirmed the brief but fierce
exchange. "The vice president seemed to be
taking personally the criticism that Senator
Leahy and others have leveled against
Halliburton's sole-source contracts in
Iraq," Carle said.
As it happens, the
exchange occurred on the same day the Senate
passed legislation described as the "Defense
of Decency Act" by 99 to 1.
Cheney's office did not
deny that the phrase was uttered. His spokesman,
Kevin S. Kellems, would say only that this
language is not typical of the vice presidential
vocabulary. "Reserving the right to revise
and extend my remarks, that doesn't sound like
language the vice president would use,"
Kellems said, "but there was a frank
exchange of views."
Gleeful Democrats pointed
out that the White House has not always been so
forgiving of obscenity. In December, Democratic
presidential candidate John F. Kerry was quoted
using the same word in describing Bush's Iraq
policy as botched. The president's chief of staff
reacted with indignation.
"That's beneath John
Kerry," Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr.
said. "I'm very disappointed that he would
use that kind of language. I'm hoping that he's
apologizing at least to himself, because that's
not the John Kerry that I know."
This was not the first
foray into French by Cheney and his boss. During
the 2000 campaign, Bush pointed out a New York
Times reporter to Cheney and said, without
knowing the microphone was picking it up,
"major-league [expletive]." Cheney's
response - "Big Time" - has become his
official presidential nickname.
Then there was that
famous Talk magazine interview of Bush by Tucker
Carlson in 1999, in which the future president
repeatedly used the F-word.
Tuesday's exchange began
when Leahy crossed the aisle at the photo session
and joked to Cheney about being on the Republican
side, according to Carle. Then Cheney, according
to Carle, "lashed into" Leahy for
remarks he made Monday criticizing Iraq contracts
won without competitive bidding by Halliburton,
Cheney's former employer.
Leahy, Carle said,
retorted that Democrats "have not
appreciated White House collusion in smears"
that Democrats were anti-Catholic for blocking
judicial nominees such as William H. Pryor Jr.
Democrats demanded that Bush disavow the
allegations by conservative groups, but the White
House did not.
The Democratic National
Committee has declared this to be
"Halliburton Week" to portray
administration ties to the controversial company.
"Sounds like it's making somebody a little
testy," Kerry spokesman Chad Clanton said.
Republicans did their
best to defend the vice president. Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch
(R-Utah), while pointing out that he was unaware
of the incident, described Cheney as "very
honest" and said: "I don't blame anyone
for standing up for his integrity."
There is no rule against
obscene language by a vice president on the
Senate floor. The senators were present for a
group picture and not in session, so Rule 19 of
the Senate rules - which prohibits vulgar
statements "unbecoming a senator" -
does not apply, according to a Senate official.
Even if the Senate were in session, the vice
president, though constitutionally the president
of the Senate, is an executive branch official
and therefore free to use whatever language he
likes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Go to Original
Cheney Utters 'F - Word'
in Senate - Aides
By Reuters
Thursday 24 June 2004
Washington - Vice
President Dick Cheney blurted out the "F
word" at Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of
Vermont during a heated exchange on the Senate
floor, congressional aides said on Thursday.
The incident occurred on
Tuesday in a terse discussion between the two
that touched on politics, religion and money,
with Cheney finally telling Leahy to "f - -
off" or "go f - - yourself," the
aides said.
"I think he was just
having a bad day," Leahy was quoted as
saying on CNN, which first reported the incident.
"I was kind of shocked to hear that kind of
language on the floor."
"That doesn't sound
like language the vice president would use but
there was a frank exchange of views," said
Cheney spokesman Kevin Kellems.
According to
congressional aides, Leahy said hello to Cheney
following the taking of the Senate group photo on
the floor of the chamber.
Cheney, who is president
of the Senate, then ripped into Leahy for the
Democratic senator's criticism this week of
alleged war profiteering in Iraq by Halliburton,
the oil services company that Cheney once ran.
Leahy and other Democrats
have called for congressional hearings into
whether the vice president helped the firm win
lucrative contracts in Iraq after the U.S.-led
war that toppled Saddam Hussein.
During their exchange,
Leahy noted that Republicans had accused
Democrats of being anti-Catholic because they are
opposed to some of President Bush's anti-abortion
judges, the aides said.
That's when Cheney
unloaded with the "F-bomb," aides said.
According to Senate
rules, profanity is not permitted in the chamber.
But when the exchange occurred between Leahy and
Cheney, the Senate was not in session so there
was technically no foul.
-------
Jump to TO Features for Saturday June
26, 2004
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