Editorial: Dick Cheney vs. John Kerry
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Vice President Dick Cheney has taken the role of attack dog-in-chief during this campaign, grumbling out daily condemnations of the Democratic ticket led by U.S. Sen. John Kerry.
Cheney's distaste for Kerry is understandable. Few American politicians are more different from one another.
Cheney got kicked out of Yale. Kerry graduated with honors. Cheney failed to finish graduate school. Kerry got a law degree.
Cheney dodged the draft during the Vietnam War, seeking and receiving five deferments in order to avoid serving his country. Kerry volunteered to serve and was recognized for his valor.
Cheney, as a member of Congress, sought to shut down the Iran-Contra investigation into criminal wrongdoing by the Reagan administration. Kerry sought to get to the bottom of the case and to hold the guilty accountable.Cheney is being investigated for fiscal misdeeds committed during his tenure as CEO of Halliburton. Kerry has led many of the most aggressive congressional investigations into corporate crimes. Cheney campaigned for his party's nomination for president in 1996 and was rejected by those who know him best. Kerry campaigned for his party's nomination this year and was selected by primary voters to be the Democratic candidate for president.
Cheney claimed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and, even when all the evidence suggested that his claims were inflated, continued to peddle the fantasy. Kerry demanded an investigation of whether the country's intelligence gathering agencies had fallen down on the job or the administration had deliberately lied to the American people.
Now, Cheney says that electing Kerry president would endanger the United States. "It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States," Cheney grunted at a Republican gathering in Des Moines.
So here is the first question: Considering Cheney's record of educational failure, draft dodging, covering up for political scandals, involving himself in what appears to be corporate corruption and deceiving the American people - either deliberately or through incompetence - why would anyone take seriously his ridiculous attacks on a more accomplished and capable man?
And here is the second question: If Cheney, who has stumbled so frequently during his career and gotten so many things so completely wrong, says one thing about international affairs, isn't it likely that the opposite is true?
Published: 7:34 AM 9/10/04
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