I don’t think I’ve ever seen a national figure tell so many lies in such a short period of time as I did last night. Dick Cheney’s reputation as a dishonest attack-dog is well-deserved, but he was in rare form last night. I counted 11 doozies, but there were no doubt more.
Whopper #1:
“[I]n 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. The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.”
Cheney seemed particularly pleased with himself with this attack. Too bad it’s completely untrue.
Whopper #2:
“[T]he Kerry record on taxes is one basically of voting for a large number of tax increases — 98 times in the United States Senate.”
We’re making progress here, oddly enough. Up until recently, Cheney insisted that Kerry had voted for tax increases 350 times. Now we’re down to 98. Nevertheless, Cheney’s still demonstrably wrong.
Whopper #3:
“The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there’s a connection between Iraq and 9/11.”
Sure he did. Many times.
Whopper #4:
“When you include the Iraqi security forces that have suffered casualties, as well as the allies, they‘ve taken almost 50 percent of the casualties in operations in Iraq, which leaves the U.S. with 50 percent, not 90 percent.”
Creative, but wildly misleading. We’ve suffered 90% of the coalition casualties, which is what Kerry and Edwards are talking about. Cheney is including Iraqi security forces’ numbers, but we don’t even have a way of checking his accuracy because the Allawi government won’t release information about how many Iraqi security forces are fighting.
Whopper #5:
“In 1984, when [Kerry] ran for the Senate he opposed, or called for the elimination of a great many major weapons systems that were crucial to winning the Cold War and are important today to our overall forces.”
Another wildly misleading one. By citing a 20-year-old position, Cheney tries to insist that Kerry opposed many key weapons systems. He’s deceiving people by failing to admit he personally opposed many of the same systems and actually fought for even more Defense cuts.
Whopper #6:
“You made the comment that the Gulf War coalition in ’91 was far stronger than this. No. We had 34 countries then; we’ve got 30 today.”
Craziness. As Fred Kaplan explained, “In ’91, much of that coalition sent lots of troops and money. Every major power of Western Europe and of the Arab League—including Saudi Arabia and even Syria—deployed divisions of armed troops on the ground, wings of combat planes in the air (or at least on runways). In the 2003 war, only Britain, Australia, and briefly Spain had any fighting forces worth mentioning.”
Whopper #7:
“We heard Senator Kerry say the other night that there ought to be some kind of global test before U.S. troops are deployed preemptively to protect the United States.”
This isn’t even close to being correct.
Whopper #8:
“Well, the fact of the matter is a great many of our small businesses pay taxes under the personal income taxes rather than the corporate rate. And about 900,000 small businesses will be hit if you do, in fact, do what they want to do with the top bracket.”
Wrong. As the Washington Post explained, “Under Cheney’s definition, a small business is any taxpayer who includes some income from a small business investment, partnership, limited liability corporation or trust. By that definition, every partner at a huge accounting firm or at the largest law firm would represent small businesses. According to IRS data, a tiny fraction of small business “S-corporations” earn enough profits to be in the top two tax brackets. Most are in the bottom two brackets.”
Whopper #9:
“John Edwards, two and a half years ago, six months after we went into Afghanistan announced that it was chaotic, the situation was deteriorating, the warlords were about to take over.”
First of all, that’s a mischaracterization. Edwards said at the time that Afghanistan was “largely unstable” and likely to get worse. Second of all, Edwards was right — violence is increasing, the Taliban has regrouped and is reasserting itself, and warlords control much of the country.
Whopper #10:
“We’ve got 10 million voters who have registered to vote, nearly half of them women.”
Afghanistan only has 9.8 million eligible voters. The fact that 10 million have registered is a sign of voter fraud, not a blossoming democracy.
Whopper #11:
“Gwen, we’ve never let up on Osama bin Laden from day one. We’ve actively and aggressively pursued him.”
Oh, really? I wonder how Cheney deals with articles like this one:
In 2002, troops from the 5th Special Forces Group who specialize in the Middle East were pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for their next assignment: Iraq. Their replacements were troops with expertise in Spanish cultures.
The CIA, meanwhile, was stretched badly in its capacity to collect, translate and analyze information coming from Afghanistan. When the White House raised a new priority, it took specialists away from the Afghanistan effort to ensure Iraq was covered.