Good God, they're actually defending Cheney's outright lie that he never met Edwards before. And even better, they're lying in their lie about the lie. Suggesting that Cheney said he never met Edwards at work - which Cheney didn't say at all. And even if that were true, how is meeting Edwards on the Senate floor not "at work"? Was the requirement that Edwards be bent over scribbling a piece of legislation when he "met" Cheney? Or that they be in a room negotiating something?
I mean hell, by Cheney's standard, Edwards was in the Senate EVERY DAY and never once met Cheney, the president of the Senate, "at work." So I guess that means Cheney didn't do a damn thing his entire term (well, other than lie to get us into a war that's killed over 1,000 Americans and set back the war on terror).
As the DNC said the other day in a new ad, if they're willing to lie about the little things...From the Washinton Post:
It depends on what the meaning of the word "met" is: Some debate viewers thought Vice President Cheney, who also serves as president of the Senate, got off a good zinger Tuesday night when he ripped into John Edwards's attendance in the Senate. Like a stern principal, Cheney lectured Edwards, the boyish truant: "The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight."They had a "casual encounter" rather than acually meeting. I thought Cheney was trying to get those banned in the Constitution?
Ooops. Turns out they'd met at least three times before. One of the meetings was caught on camera: on Feb. 1, 2001, when the vice president thanked the North Carolina senator by name and dined next to him at a Senate prayer breakfast. Then on Jan. 8, 2003, Edwards accompanied Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.) to her swearing-in -- conducted by Cheney. And, according to Tim Russert, a pretty good eyewitness, Edwards and Cheney also met backstage and shook hands on April 8, 2001, during a taping of NBC's "Meet the Press."
Was Cheney dissembling -- as Edwards suggested post-debate -- or misremembering? Of course not! The Bush-Cheney camp yesterday portrayed those occasions as "casual encounters," not meetings.
"The fact is that the vice president has never seen John Edwards at work. . . . He's never met John Edwards at work in the U.S. Senate," campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt told us. "The vice president meets thousands of people and he's had three casual encounters with John Edwards. . . . I think most people understand that a casual encounter -- a breakfast, Elizabeth Dole's swearing-in -- is different from John Edwards showing up at work."
