[This is an early transcript from CSPAN; My
notes will appear in red]
[Many people think Vice President Cheney did well in the debate
Tuesday. Those who know the facts about
what’s happening in the world were shocked at the constant lying he used to
make his points. Some of his statements
were so far from the truth, they are quite shocking. The following is an annotated transcript of
the debate, with notes about the truth of what Cheney said.]
The
Cheney-Edwards Vice Presidential Debate
VICE
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES' DEBATE AT CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY,
SPEAKERS:
RICHARD B. CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
U.S.
SENATOR JOHN EDWARDS (NC), DEMOCRATIC VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE
GWEN
IFILL, HOST, PBS'S "
IFILL: Good evening from
I'm
Gwen Ifill of "The NewsHour" and "Washington Week" on PBS,
and I welcome you to the first and the only vice presidential debate between
Vice President Dick Cheney, the Republican nominee, and Senator John Edwards,
the Democratic nominee.
These
debates are sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Tonight's will
last 90 minutes, following detailed rules of engagement worked out by representatives
of the candidates. I have agreed to enforce the rules they have devised for
themselves to the best of my ability.
The
questions tonight will be divided between foreign and domestic policy, but the
specific topics were chosen by me. The candidates have not been told what they
are.
The
rules: For each question, there can be only a two- minute response, a 90-second
rebuttal and, at my discretion, a discussion extension of one minute.
A
green light will come on when 30 seconds remain in any given answer, yellow at
15 seconds, red at five seconds, and then flashing red means time's up. There's
also a back-up buzzer system, if needed.
Candidates
may not direct questions to one another. There will be two-minute closing
statements, but no opening statements.
There
is an audience here in the hall, but they have been instructed to remain silent
throughout.
The
order of the first question was determined by the candidates in advance, and
the first one goes to Vice President Cheney.
Vice
President Cheney, there have been new developments in Iraq, especially having
to do with the administration's handling.
Paul
Bremer, the former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, gave a speech
in which he said that we have never had enough troops on the ground, or we've
never had enough troops on the ground.
Donald
Rumsfeld said he has not seen any hard evidence of a link between Al Qaida and
Saddam Hussein. Was this approved -- of a report that you requested that you
received a week ago that showed there was no connection between Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein?
CHENEY:
Gwen, I want to thank you, and I want to thank the folks here at Case Western
Reserve for hosting this tonight. It's a very important event, and they've done
a superb job of putting it together.
It's
important to look at all of our developments in Iraq within the broader context
of the global war on terror. And, after 9/11, it became clear that we had to do
several things to have a successful strategy to win the global war on terror,
specifically that we had to go after the terrorists where ever we might find
them, that we also had to go after state sponsors of terror, those who might
provide sanctuary or safe harbor for terror. And we also then finally had to
stand up democracies in their stead afterwards,
because that was the only way to guarantee that these states would not again
become safe harbors for terror or for the development of deadly weapons.
[Lies and insinuation – Cheney’s tying
http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,1320537,00.html
]
Concern
about Iraq specifically focused on the fact that Saddam Hussein had been, for
years, listed on the state sponsor of terror, that they he had established
relationships with Abu Nidal, who operated out of Baghdad; he paid $25,000 to
the families of suicide bombers; and he had an established relationship with Al
Qaida. Specifically, look at George Tenet, the CIA director's testimony before
the Committee on Foreign Relations two years ago when he talked about a 10-year
relationship.
[Some of this is partially true; Saddam had no “relationship” with
Abu Nidal, they certainly were not working together in any way. He had no working relationship at all with Al
Qaeda, in fact he rejected their advances; in general Saddam was very
anti-fundamentalist, which is why we supported him for so many years! The CIA has said there is no hard evidence of
a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda]
[An old Bush speech about why we should invade Iraq, full of false
allegations about WMD and ties to Al Qaeda, and mention of 9/11 –
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html
The new report that
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/index.html
Here, Cheney said –
http://www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=4743.xml
“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has
weapons of mass destruction.”
]
[Here’s what Tenet says about 9/11 –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,814748,00.html
and in all his testimony, the only mention
of
“As you may have read in the press, Atta allegedly traveled outside
the US in early April 2001 to meet with an Iraqi intelligence officer in
Prague, we are still working to confirm or deny this allegation.”
The CIA knew of no connection; the connection was brought up by
Rumsfeld and Cheney; the CIA then worked to determine if it was true (it was
not).
Seymour Hersh writes about Rumsfeld’s intelligence sources -
http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/2003/en/0512_hersh.html
Ted Kennedy has a good summary –
http://kennedy.senate.gov/~kennedy/statements/04/03/2004305633.html
This is an amusing old transcript; here Iraq is mentioned as a
threat only as one of many countries – Syria, Libya, Iran, etc.
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1997_hr/97020624.htm
]
The
effort that we've mounted with respect to Iraq focused specifically on the
possibility that this was the most likely nexus between the terrorists and
weapons of mass destruction.
The
biggest threat we faced today is the possibility of terrorists smuggling a
nuclear weapon or a biological agent into one of our own cities and threatening
the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
What
we did in Iraq was exactly the right thing to do. If I had it to recommend all
over again, I would recommend exactly the same course of action. The world is
far safer today because Saddam Hussein is in jail, his
government is no longer in power. And we did exactly the right thing.
[Cheney is saying that knowing now that Saddam had no WMD, that
Saddam was not a threat to the US, he would still invade Iraq. The only reasonable defense for going into
Iraq is to say you had the wrong intelligence.
In fact, this administration was planning to invade Iraq from the
beginning
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml
]
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds to respond.
EDWARDS:
Thank you.
Thank
you, Gwen, for moderating this debate. Thank you to the folks of Case Western
and all the people in Ohio for having us here.
Mr.
Vice President, you are still not being straight with the American people. I
mean, the reality you and George Bush continue to tell people, first, that
things are going well in Iraq -- the American people don't need us to explain
this to them, they see it on their television every single day. We lost more
troops in September than we lost in August; lost more in August than we lost in
July; lost more in July than we lost in June.
The
truth is, our men and women in uniform have been
heroic. Our military has done everything they've been asked to do.
And
it's not just me that sees the mess in Iraq. There are Republican leaders, like
John McCain, like Richard Lugar, like Chuck Hagel, who have said Iraq is a mess
and it's getting worse. And when they were asked why, Richard Lugar said
because of the incompetence of the administration.
What
Paul Bremer said yesterday is they didn't have enough troops to secure the
country. They also didn't have a plan to win the peace. They also didn't put
the alliances together to make this successful.
We
need a fresh start. We need a president who will speed up the training of the
Iraqis, get more staff in for doing that. We need to speed up the
reconstruction so the Iraqis see some tangible benefit. We need a new president
who has the credibility, which John Kerry has, to bring others into this
effort.
IFILL:
You have 30 seconds to respond, Mr. Vice President.
CHENEY:
We've made significant progress in Iraq. We've stood up a new government that's
been in power now only 90 days. The notion of additional troops is talked about
frequently, but the point of success in
[Just handing governance over to a state that’s not secure is no
solution. This is about to happen in
We
also are actively, rapidly training Iraqis to take on the security
responsibility.
[There are currently roughly 5000 troops in the Iraqi army. The GOP likes to quote this 100,000 number,
but that includes all kinds of support staff.]
Those
two steps are crucial to success in
IFILL:
You have 30 seconds, Senator.
EDWARDS:
Yes.
Mr.
Vice President, there is no connection between the attacks of September 11th
and Saddam Hussein. The 9/11 Commission has said it. Your own secretary of
state has said it. And you've gone around the country suggesting that there is
some connection. There is not.
And in
fact the CIA is now about to report that the connection between Al Qaida and
Saddam Hussein is tenuous at best. And, in fact, the secretary of defense said
yesterday that he knows of no hard evidence of the connection.
We
need to be straight with the American people.
IFILL:
Time for a new question but the same topic. And this time to
you, Senator Edwards.
You
and Senator Kerry have said that the war in
Does
that mean that if you had been president and vice president that Saddam Hussein
would still be in power?
EDWARDS:
Here's what it means: It means that Saddam Hussein needed to be confronted.
John Kerry and I have consistently said that. That's why we voted for the
resolution. But it also means it needed to be done the right way.
And
doing it the right way meant that we were prepared; that we gave the weapons
inspectors time to find out what we now know, that in fact there were no weapons
of mass destruction; that we didn't take our eye off the ball, which are Al
Qaida, Osama bin Laden, the people who attacked us on September the 11th. Now,
remember, we went into
But we
had Osama bin Laden cornered at Tora Bora. We had the 10th Mountain Division up
in
We turned
-- this is the man who masterminded the greatest mass murder and terrorist
attack in American history. And what did the administration decide to do?
They
gave the responsibility of capturing and/or killing Saddam -- I mean Osama bin
Laden to Afghan warlords who, just a few weeks before, had been working with
Osama bin Laden.
Our
point in this is not complicated: We were attacked by Al Qaida and Osama bin
Laden.
We
went into
And
these connections -- I want the American people to hear this very clearly.
Listen carefully to what the vice president is saying. Because
there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11th
-- period.
The
9/11 Commission has said that's true. Colin Powell has said it's true. But the
vice president keeps suggesting that there is. There is not. And, in fact, any
connection with Al Qaida is tenuous at best.
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds to respond.
CHENEY:
The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there's a connection
between
[This is a huge lie. While
Cheney has of course never said that
One interview is here –
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/meet.htm
where he cites the “aluminum
tube” evidence, which was known to be false at the time.
In this interview, he clearly says Saddam helped Al Qaeda and was
connected to 9/11 –
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3080244/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6188565
]
And
the point is that that's the place where you're most likely to see the
terrorists come together with weapons of mass destruction, the deadly
technologies that Saddam Hussein had developed and used over the years.
[Actually, Pakistan and Iran and more likely – they actually have
weapons and terrorists!]
Now,
the fact of the matter is, the big difference here, Gwen, is they are not
prepared to deal with states that sponsor terror. They've got a very limited
view about how to use U.S. military forces to defend America.
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.
That's part of a track record that goes back to the 1970s when he ran for
Congress the first time and said troops should not be deployed without U.N.
approval. Then, in the mid-'80s, he ran on the basis of
cutting most of our major defense programs. In 1991, he voted against
Desert Storm.
[That’s a distortion of what Kerry said. Kerry supported honoring our treaty with the
U.N., which meant only using troops unilaterally for
vital
Cheney and Rumsfeld have worked heavily to cut the military –
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=48737
http://www.polkonline.com/stories/060604/opi_cheneyrecord.shtml
]
It's a
consistent pattern over time of always being on the wrong side of defense
issues.
A little
tough talk in the midst of a campaign or as part of a presidential debate
cannot obscure a record of 30 years of being on the wrong side of defense
issues.
And
they give absolutely no indication, based on that record, of being wiling to go
forward and aggressively pursue the war on terror with a kind of strategy that
will work, that will defeat our enemies and will guarantee that the United
States doesn't again get attacked by the likes of Al Qaida.
IFILL:
You will respond to that topic, but first I want to ask you for two minutes,
Vice President Cheney.
Tonight
we mentioned Afghanistan. We believe that Osama bin Laden is hiding perhaps in
a cave somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
If you
get a second term, what is your plan to capture him and then to neutralize
those who have sprung up to replace him?
CHENEY:
Gwen, we've never let up on Osama bin Laden from day one. We've actively and
aggressively pursued him. We've captured or killed thousands of Al Qaida in
various places around the world and especially in Afghanistan. We'll continue
to very aggressively pursue him, and I'm confident eventually we'll get him.
[This is a huge lie; we didn’t have troops in Afghanistan, we
allowed the Northern Alliance to make deals with the Taliban, and we allowed
the Pakistanis to air-lift many pashtuns out of Afghanistan! Now our military is fully occupied in Iraq
and we’re doing nothing about Osama!]
The
key to success in Afghanistan has been, again, to go in and go after the
terrorists, which we've done, and also take down the Taliban regime which
allowed them to function there, in effect sponsors, if you will, of the Al
Qaida organization.
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. Here we are, two and a half years later, we're four
days away from a democratic election, the first one in history in Afghanistan.
We've got 10 million voters who have registered to vote, nearly half of them
women.
[Afghanistan is a mess; the warlords still control most of the
country, the Opium trade has returned, women are being killed for trying to
register to vote, and our military controls nothing
but
That
election will put in place a democratically elected government that will take
over next December.
We've
made enormous progress in Afghanistan, in exactly the right direction, in spite
of what John Edwards said two and a half years ago. He just got it wrong.
The
fact is, as we go forward in Afghanistan, we will pursue Osama bin Laden and
the terrorists as long as necessary. We're standing up Afghan security forces
so they can take on responsibility for their own security. We'll keep U.S.
forces there -- we have about 16,000 there today -- as long as necessary, to
assist the Afghans in terms of dealing with their security situation. But
they're making significant progress. We have President Karzai, who is in power.
They have done wonders writing their own constitution for the first time ever.
Schools are open. Young girls are going to school. Women are going to vote.
Women are even eligible to run for office. This is major, major progress. There
will be democracy in Afghanistan, make no doubt about it. Freedom is the best
antidote to terror.
[The truth is that Afghanistan is currently a mess; Karzai is a
US-installed puppet with no power outside of Kabul, and the country is large
controlled by various competing ethnic factions.
http://www.cursor.org/stories/archivistan.htm
http://www.meib.org/articles/0401_afg1.htm
http://www.hrw.org/wr2k4/5.htm
]
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds.
EDWARDS:
Someone did get it wrong. But it wasn't John Kerry and John Edwards. They got
it wrong. When we had Osama bin Laden cornered, they left the job to the Afghan
warlords. They then diverted their attention from the very people who attacked
us, who were at the center of the war on terror, and so Osama bin Laden is
still at large. Now, I want to go back to something the vice president said
just a minute ago, because these distortions are continuing.
He
said that -- made mention of this global test. What John Kerry said -- and it's
just as clear as day to anybody who was listening -- he said: We will find
terrorists where they are and kill them before they ever do harm to the
American people, first.
We
will keep this country safe. He defended this country as a young man, he will defend this country as president of the
He
also said very clearly that he will never give any country veto power over the
security of the United States of America.
Now, I
know the vice president would like to pretend that wasn't said, and the
president would too. But the reality is it was said.
Here's
what's actually happened in Afghanistan, regardless of this rosy scenario that
they paint on Afghanistan, just like they do with Iraq. What's actually
happened is they're now providing 75 percent of the world's opium.
Not
only are they providing 75 percent of the world's opium, large-cut parts of the
country are under the control of drug lords and
warlords. Big parts of the country are still insecure.
And
the reality is the part of Afghanistan, eastern Afghanistan, where Osama bin
Laden is, is one of the hardest places to control and the most insecure, Gwen.
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, 30 seconds.
CHENEY:
Twenty years ago we had a similar situation in El Salvador. We had -- guerrilla
insurgency controlled roughly a third of the country, 75,000 people dead, and
we held free elections. I was there as an observer on behalf of the Congress.
The
human drive for freedom, the determination of these people to vote, was
unbelievable. And the terrorists would come in and shoot up polling places; as
soon as they left, the voters would come back and get
in line and would not be denied the right to vote.
And
today El Salvador is a whale of a lot better because we held free elections.
The
power of that concept is enormous. And it will apply in
[Cheney is just mocking us by mentioning El Salvador,
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V109/N6/klinge.06o.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/deraymond03262004.html
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-c02-s08.html
Chomsky says:
The fall of [Nicaraguan dictator] Somoza in 1979
aroused fears in
The Carter Administration reacted to these threats
in
In February 1980, Archbishop Romero pleaded with
President Carter not to provide the junta with military aid, which, he
observed, "will surely increase injustice here and sharpen the repression
that has been unleashed against the people's organizations fighting to defend
their most fundamental human rights"....
But increasing the repression, destroying the
people's organizations and preventing independence were the very essence of
U.S. policy, so Carter ignored the Archbishop's plea and sent the aid, to
"strengthen the army's key role in reforms"....
In March 1980, Archbishop Romero was assassinated. A
judicial investigation was initiated, headed by Judge Atilio Ramírez. He
accused General Medrano, the death squad organizer and U.S. favorite, and
rightwing leader Roberto d'Aubuisson of hiring the assassins, and shortly after
fled the country after death threats and an attempt on his life.... Judge
Ramírez concludes that "it is undoubtedly the case that from the very
beginning, they were involved in a kind of conspiracy to cover up the
murder...."
In June, the university was shut down after an army
attack that left many killed, including the rector, and facilities looted and
destroyed....
Meanwhile, the independent media were eliminated by
bombings and terror, another prerequisite for "free elections" to
legitimate the client regime. The editor and a journalist [of La Crónica del
Pueblo] were found with their bodies hacked to pieces with machetes, and [El
Independiente] closed after three attempts to assassinate the editor, threats
to his family, occupation of the offices by armed forces, and the arrest and
torture of staff members. The Church radio station was repeatedly bombed, and
shortly after Reagan's election, troops occupied the Archdiocese building,
destroying the radio station and ransacking the newspaper offices....
On
Turning the Tide, pages 102-107
...[D]uring the Salvadorian election [The New York Times, Time,
Newsweek, and CBS News had not] even mentioned the destruction by physical violence
and murder of La Crónica and El Independiente, or the toll of murdered
journalists.
Manufacturing Consent, page 129
]
EDWARDS:
The vice president just said that we should focus on state sponsors of
terrorism.
It's a
mistake. We should not only not lift them, we should
strengthen those sanctions.
IFILL:
New question to you, Senator Edwards, but I don't want to let go of the global
test question first, because...
EDWARDS:
Sure.
IFILL:
... I want people to understand exactly what it is, as you said, that Senator
Kerry did say.
He
said, "You've got to do" -- you know, he was asked about preemptive
action at the last debate -- he said, "You've got to do it in a way that
passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people
understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and can prove to the world
that you did it for legitimate reasons." What is a global test if it's not
a global veto?
EDWARDS:
Well, let me say, first, he said in the same segment -- I don't remember
precisely where it was connected with what you just read -- but he said, point
blank, "We will never give anyone a veto over the security of the
What
he's saying is we're going to go back to the proud tradition of the
First,
we're going to actually tell the American people the truth. We're going to tell
them the truth about what's happening.
We're
not going to suggest to them that things are going well in
We're
going to make sure that the American people know the truth about why we are
using force and what the explanation for it is.
And
it's not just the American people. We're also going to make sure that we tell
the world the truth.
Because
the reality is, for
It is
critical that they believe that when America takes action, they can trust what
we're doing, what we say, what we say at the United Nations, what we say in
direct conversations with leaders of the world -- of other countries.
They
need to know that the credibility of the
And
unfortunately, we're seeing the consequences of that right now.
It's
one of the reasons that we're having so much difficulty getting others involved
in the effort in
You
know, we've taken 90 percent of the coalition causalities. American taxpayers
have borne 90 percent of the costs of the effort in
And we
see the result of there not being a coalition: The first Gulf war cost
John
Kerry will never give up control over the security of the
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds to respond.
CHENEY:
Well, Gwen, the 90 percent figure is just dead wrong. 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
[He said Coalition Casualties pretty clearly; including the Iraqis is
a distortion because they obviously have a far less sophisticated military, and
lately we’ve taken to putting them in charge of the nastiest snake pits, like
Falluja]
With
respect to the cost, it wasn't $200 billion. You probably weren't there to vote
for that. But $120 billion is, in fact, what has been allocated to
[Cheney’s number is just wrong.
$151 billion has already been allocated for
http://www.ips-dc.org/iraq/failedtransition/index.htm
Cheney talks about “what’s been allocated”, while Edwards
talks about the “cost”, which is not the same thing if our current allocation
is too small. Most experts agree $200
billion is close to the projected costs of the war, and in fact it may cost
even more to stabilize
]
The
allies have stepped forward and agreed to reduce and forgive Iraqi debt to the
tune of nearly $80 billion by one estimate. That, plus $14 billion they
promised in terms of direct aid, puts the overall allied contribution
financially at about $95 billion, not to the $120 billion we've got, but, you
know, better than 40 percent. So your facts are just wrong, Senator.
You
also have a situation where you talk about credibility.
It's
awfully hard to convey a sense of credibility to allies when you voted for the
war and then you declared: Wrong war, wrong place, wrong
time. You voted for the war, and then you voted against supporting the troops
when they needed the equipment, the fuel, the spare parts and the ammunition
and the body armor.
You're
not credible on
EDWARDS:
May I respond briefly?
What
the vice president has just said is just a complete distortion. The American
people saw John Kerry on Thursday night. They don't need the vice president or
the president to tell them what they saw.
They
saw a man who was strong, who had conviction, who is resolute, who made it very
clear that he will do everything that has to be done to find terrorists, to keep
the American people safe.
He
laid out his plan for success in
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, you have 30 seconds.
CHENEY:
Your rhetoric, Senator, would be a lot more credible if there was a record to
back it up. There isn't. And you cannot use "talk tough" during the
course of a 90-minute debate in a presidential campaign to obscure a 30-year
record in the United States Senate and, prior to that by John Kerry, who has
consistently come down on the wrong side of all the major defense issues that
he's faced as a public official.
[The personal attacks begin]
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, a new question for you. You have two minutes to respond.
When
the president says that Senator Kerry is emboldening enemies and you say that
we could get hit again if voters make the wrong choice in November, are you
saying that it would be a dangerous thing to have John Kerry as president?
CHENEY:
I'm saying specifically that I don't believe he has the qualities we need in a
commander in chief because I don't think, based on his record, that he would
pursue the kind of aggressive policies that need to be pursued if we're going
to defeat these terrorists. We need to battle them overseas so we don't have to
battle them here at home.
I'm
not challenging John Kerry's patriotism. I said in my acceptance speech in
We've
never criticized his patriotism. What we've questioned is his judgment.
And
his judgment's flawed, and the record's there for
anybody who wants to look at it.
In
1984, when he 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.
[Weapons systems critical to winning the cold
war? This is just a load of
nonsense. Expensive and non-functional
weapons systems like Star Wars and the Crusader did not help in the cold war at
all, and as Edwards points out below, Cheney and Rumsfeld have actually been
very aggressive at cutting these programs.
Cheney’s flip-flopped!]
When
Saddam Hussein invaded
[This is basically true, Kerry did vote against force in ’91,
preferring sanctions and other actions against
The
problem we have is that, if you look at his record, he doesn't display the
qualities of somebody who has conviction.
And
with respect to this particular operation, we've seen a situation in which,
first, they voted to commit the troops, to send them to war, John Edwards and
John Kerry, then they came back and when the question was whether or not you
provide them with the resources they needed -- body armor, spare parts,
ammunition -- they voted against it.
[This is a big lie. Kerry and
Edwards both voted FOR the Democratic version of the $87 billion appropriations
bill, which would have taken the funding by rolling back Bush’s tax cut on the
wealthiest Americans. They voted against
the Republican version as a procedural measure.]
I
couldn't figure out why that happened initially. And then I looked and figured
out that what was happening was Howard Dean was making major progress in the
Democratic primaries, running away with the primaries based on an anti-war
record. So they, in effect, decided they would cast an anti-war vote and they
voted against the troops.
Now if
they couldn't stand up to the pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can
we expect them to stand up to Al Qaida?
[That’s a sleazy smear.]
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds to respond.
EDWARDS:
Thank you.
One
thing that's very clear is that a long resume does not equal good judgment. I
mean, we've seen over and over and over the misjudgments made by this
administration.
I want
to go back to what the vice president just said, because it's a continuation of
the things he's been doing, unfortunately, on the campaign trail; it's a
continuation of what he began his first answer with tonight.
John
Kerry has voted for the biggest military appropriations bill in the country's
history. John Kerry has voted for the biggest intelligence appropriations in
the country's history.
This
vice president, when he was secretary of defense, cut over 80 weapons systems,
including the very ones he's criticizing John Kerry for voting against. These
are weapons systems, a big chunk of which, the vice president himself suggested
we get rid of after the Cold War.
The
reality is that John Kerry has consistently supported the very men that he
served with in
On the
$87 billion, it was clear at the time of that vote that they had no plan to win
the peace. We're seeing the consequences of that everyday on the ground right
now.
We
stood up and said: For our troops, we must have a plan to win the peace.
We
also thought it was wrong to have a $20 billion fund out of which $7.5 billion
was going to go to a no-bid contract for Halliburton, the vice president's
former company.
It was
wrong then. It's wrong now.
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, you have 30 seconds.
CHENEY:
Well, Gwen, I think the record speaks for itself. These are two individuals who
have been for the war when the headlines were good and against it when their
poll ratings were bad.
We
have not seen the kind of consistency that a commander in chief has to have in
order to be a leader in wartime and in order to be able to see the strategy
through to victory.
If we
want to win the war on terror, it seems to me it's pretty clear the choice is
George Bush, not John Kerry.
IFILL:
And 30 seconds...
EDWARDS:
John Kerry has been absolutely clear and consistent from the beginning that we
must stay focused on the people who attacked us; that Saddam Hussein was a
threat that needed to be addressed directly; that the weapons inspectors needed
to have time to do their job.
Had
they had time to do their job, they would have discovered what we now know,
that in fact Saddam Hussein had no weapons, that in fact Saddam Hussein has no
connection with 9/11, that in fact Saddam Hussein has little or no connection
with Al Qaida.
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, new question to you, and you have two minutes to respond.
Part
of what you have said and Senator Kerry has said that you are going to do in
order to get us out of the problems in Iraq is to internationalize the effort.
Yet
French and German officials have both said they have no intention even if John
Kerry is elected of sending any troops into
EDWARDS:
Well, let's start with what we know. What we know is that the president and the
vice president have not done the work to build the coalition that we need --
dramatically different than the first Gulf War. We know that they haven't done
it, and we know they can't do it.
They
didn't, by the way, just reject the allies going into lead- up to the war. They
also rejected them in the effort to do the reconstruction in
What
we believe is, as part of our entire plan for
They
have a plan for
We
have a plan for success. And that plan includes speeding up the training of the
military. We have less than half of the staff that we need there to complete that training.
Second,
make sure that the reconstruction is sped up in a way that the Iraqis see some
tangible benefit for what's happening.
And by
the way, if we need to, we can take Iraqis out of
We
should do whatever has to be done to train the Iraqis and to speed up that
process.
That
works in conjunction with making sure the elections take place on time.
Right
now, the United Nations, which is responsible for the elections in January, has
about 35 people there. Now, that's compared with a much smaller country like
You
need more than 35 people to hold an election in
And
they keep saying the election's on schedule, this is
going to happen.
The
reality is we need a new president with credibility with the rest of the world
and who has a real plan for success. Success breeds contribution, breeds
joining the coalition.
Not
only that, I want to go back to what the vice president said. He attacks us
about the troops. They sent 40,000 American troops into
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds.
CHENEY:
Well, Gwen, it's hard to know where to start; there are so many inaccuracies
there.
The
fact of the matter is the troops wouldn't have what they have today if you guys
had had your way.
[That’s an outright lie (see above).
In fact, it was the Bush administration that sent troops into battle
with abbreviated training, without sufficient body armor, and without the
numbers and support they need to do their job].
You
talk about internationalizing the effort. They don't have a plan. Basically,
it's an echo.
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. We've got troops beside us.
[Lies. Counting the number of countries is not a
measure of the coalition. The Gulf War
had 160,000 troops from other countries (24% of troops), and more than 50% of
the cost was borne by other countries.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/gulf.war/facts/gulfwar/].
It's
hard, after John Kerry referred to our allies as a coalition of the coerced and
the bribed, to go out and persuade people to send troops and to participate in
this process.
You
end up with a situation in which -- talk about demeaning. In effect, you demean
the sacrifice of our allies when you say it's the wrong war, wrong place, wrong
time, and oh, by the way, send troops.
Makes no sense at all. It's totally inconsistent. There
isn't a plan there.
[More distortions. Kerry says the war was the wrong thing to do,
but now that we are there, we have to finish it right. There is no contradiction in that, it’s
perfectly reasonable.]
Our
most important ally in the war on terror, in
And
John Kerry rushed out immediately after his speech was over with, where he came
and he thanked
[Allawi’s speech was written by Bush’s handlers; he in fact, is not credible.]
That
is not the way to win friends and allies. You're never going to add to the
coalition with that kind of attitude.
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, 30 seconds.
EDWARDS:
Thank you.
The
vice president suggests that we have the same number of countries involved now
that we had in the first Gulf War. The first Gulf War cost the American people
$5 billion.
And
regardless of what the vice president says, we're at $200 billion and counting.
Not only that, 90 percent of the coalition casualties, Mr.
Vice President, the coalition casualties, are American casualties.
Ninety percent of the cost of this effort are being
borne by American taxpayers. It is the direct result of the failures of this
administration.
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President?
CHENEY:
Classic example. He won't count the sacrifice and the contribution of Iraqi
allies. It's their country. They're in the fight. They're increasingly the ones
out there putting their necks on the line to take back their country from the
terrorists and the old regime elements that are still left. They're doing a
superb job. And for you to demean their sacrifices strikes me as...
[That’s not what Edwards said at all.]
EDWARDS:
Oh, I'm not...
CHENEY:
... as beyond...
EDWARDS:
I'm not demeaning...
CHENEY:
It is indeed. You suggested...
EDWARDS:
No, sir, I did not...
CHENEY:
... somehow they shouldn't count, because you want to be able to say that the
Americans are taking 90 percent of the sacrifice. You cannot succeed in this
effort if you're not willing to recognize the enormous contribution the Iraqis
are increasingly making to their own future.
We'll
win when they take on responsibility for governance, which they're doing, and
when the take on responsibility for their own security, which they increasingly
are doing.
IFILL:
New question, similar topic, because I want to circle back to a question which
I'm not quite certain we got an answer to.
But I
will direct it to you first, Senator Edwards.
EDWARDS:
Thanks.
IFILL:
It's a question of American intelligence.
If
this report that we've read about today is true, and if Vice President Cheney
ordered it and asked about this, do you think that, in the future, that your
administration or the Bush administration would have sufficient and accurate
enough intelligence to be able to make decisions about where to go next?
EDWARDS:
Well, let me speak, first of all, to what the vice president just said, and
then I'll answer that question.
This,
unfortunately -- what the vice president is telling people is inconsistent with
everything they see every single day. It's a continuation of, "Well,
there's a strong connection between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein."
It's
not true. It's a continuation of at least insinuating that there's some
connection between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. It's not true.
It's
saying to the American people, as the president said last Thursday, and the
vice president continues to say tonight, that things are going well in Iraq,
contrary to what people who have been there have seen, including Republican
leaders, contrary to what everyone in America sees on their television every
day -- Americans being kidnapped, people being beheaded, parts of the country
under the control of insurgents, even today, under the control of the
insurgents.
The
vice president has still not said anything about what Mr. Bremer said, about
the failure to have adequate troops, the failure to be able to secure the
country in the short term.
You
know, remember "shock and awe"?
Look
at where we are now. It is a direct result of the failure to plan, the failure
to have others involved in this effort. This is not an accident.
Now,
let me go back to your question.
If we
want to do the things that need to be done to keep this country safe, we can't
be dragged kicking and screaming to it.
One
thing that everybody does agree on is that 9/11 did change things.
But
what's happened is this administration opposed the creation of a 9/11
Commission to find out why it happened and what we needed to do.
They
opposed the creation of a Department of Homeland Security, and then they were
for it.
We
can't react that way. We must be more aggressive.
With
John Kerry as president of the
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President?
CHENEY:
Gwen, the story that appeared today about this report is
one I asked for. I ask an awful lot of questions as part of my job as vice
president. A CIA spokesman was quoted in that story as saying they had not yet
reached the bottom line and there is still debate over this question of the
relationship between Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein.
[The CIA says there is no hard evidence of a link between Al Qaeda
and Saddam Hussein. The administration
continues to push them to investigate this matter, when they should be
investigating active terror threats.]
The
report also points out that at one point some of Zarqawi's people were
arrested. Saddam personally intervened to have them released, supposedly at the
request of Zarqawi
But
let's look at what we know about Mr. Zarqawi.
We
know he was running a terrorist camp, training terrorists in
We
know he's still in
He is,
without question, a bad guy. He is, without question, a terrorist. He was, in
fact, in
The
fact of the matter is that this is exactly the kind of track record we've seen
over the years. We have to deal with Zarqawi by taking him out, and that's
exactly what we'll do.
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, in June of 2000 when you were still CEO of Halliburton, you
said that
After
four years as vice president now, and with
CHENEY:
No, I do not. And, Gwen, at the time, I was talking specifically about this
question of unilateral sanctions.
What
happens when we impose unilateral sanctions is, unless there's a collective
effort, then other people move in and take advantage of the situation and you
don't have any impact, except to penalize American companies.
We've
got sanctions on
[You’re in power, why haven’t you asked for sanctions on
We
dealt with
[Because no resolutions have been passed on
We're
working with the Brits and the Germans and the French, who've been negotiating
with the Iranians.
We
recently were actively involved in a meeting with the board of governors in the
International Atomic Energy Agency. And as I say, there will be a follow-up meeting
in November to determine whether or not
And if
they aren't, my guess is then the board of governors will recommend sending the
whole matter to the U.N. Security Council for the application of the
international sanctions, which I think would be exactly the right way to go.
We're
addressing
[This administration intentionally cut off talks with
One of
the great by-products, for example, of what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan is
that five days after we captured Saddam Hussein, Moammar Gadhafi in Libya came
forward and announced that he was going to surrender all of his nuclear
materials to the United States, which he has done.
[This is a huge lie.
Gadhafi’s agreement was the result of negotiations with
This
was one of the biggest sources of proliferation in the world today in terms of
the threat that was represented by that. The suppliers
network that provided that, headed by Mr. A.Q. Khan, has been shut down.
[A.Q. Khan worked for the Pakistani government, which we have
supported, and has been the world’s largest nuclear proliferators. The
We've
made major progress in dealing here with a major issue with respect to nuclear
proliferation. And we'll continue to press very hard on the North Koreans and
the Iranians as well.
IFILL:
Senator Edwards?
EDWARDS:
Well, the vice president talks about there being a member, or someone
associated with Al Qaida, in
How
many of those countries are we going to invade?
Not
only that, he talks about
Now,
the vice president, as you pointed out, spoke out loudly for lifting the
sanctions on
I
mentioned Halliburton a few minute ago in connection with the $87 billion, and
you raised it in this question. This is relevant, because he was pushing for
lifting sanctions when he was CEO of Halliburton. Here's why we didn't think
Halliburton should have a no-bid contract.
While
he was CEO of Halliburton, they paid millions of dollars in fines for providing
false information on their company, just like Enron and Ken Lay.
They
did business with
They're
now under investigation for having bribed foreign officials during that period
of time.
Not
only that, they've gotten a $7.5 billion no-bid contract in
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President?
CHENEY:
I can respond, Gwen, but it's going to take more than 30 seconds.
IFILL:
Well, that's all you've got.
(LAUGHTER)
CHENEY:
Well, the reason they keep mentioning Halliburton is because they're trying to
throw up a smokescreen. They know the charges are false.
They
know that if you go, for example, to factcheck.com (sic), an independent Web
site sponsored by the
[http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=272].
It's an
effort that they've made repeatedly to try to confuse the voters and to raise
questions, but there's no substance to the charges.
IFILL:
Thirty seconds.
EDWARDS:
These are the facts.
The
facts are the vice president's company that he was CEO of, that did business
with sworn enemies of the
The
same company that got a $7.5 billion no-bid contract, the rule is that part of
their money is supposed to be withheld when they're under investigation, as
they are now, for having overcharged the American taxpayer, but they're getting
every dime of their money.
I'm
happy to let voters make their own decision about this.
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, as we wrap up the foreign policy part of this, I do want to
talk to you about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Today,
a senior member of Islamic Jihad was killed in
What
would your administration do?
First
of all, do you agree that the
But
what would your administration do to try to resolve that conflict?
EDWARDS:
Well, first of all, I do agree that we've been largely absent, not entirely
absent, but largely absent from the peace-making process over the last four
years.
And
let me just say a couple of preliminary things and then talk about where we are
now.
First,
the Israeli people not only have the right to defend themselves, they should
defend themselves. They have an obligation to defend themselves.
I
mean, if I can, just for a moment, tell you a personal story. I was in
We
left in the morning, headed to the airport to leave, and later in the day I
found out that that same day, not far from where we were staying, the Sbarro
Pizzeria was hit by a suicide bomber in
What
are the Israeli people supposed to do? How can they continue to watch Israeli
children killed by suicide bombers, killed by terrorists?
They
have not only the right to the obligation to defend themselves.
Now,
we know that the prime minister has made a decision, an
historic decision, to unilaterally withdraw from
Now,
if
And I
might add, it is very important for
And
it's important for
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, 90 seconds.
CHENEY:
Gwen, I want to go back to the last comment, and then I'll come back to
Israel-Palestine.
The
reason they keep trying to attack Halliburton is because they want to obscure
their own record.
[Cheney diverts the question into a personal attack here.]
And
Senator, frankly, you have a record in the Senate that's not very
distinguished. You've missed 33 out of 36 meetings in the Judiciary Committee,
almost 70 percent of the meetings of the Intelligence Committee.
[It seems Edwards’ attendance has not been the best -
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595078450,00.html
However, the Intelligence Committee attendance is a bit of a red
herring. That’s the “public intelligence
committee” which almost no one attends, because it’s public so nothing useful
is said.
Kerry’s attendance has been superb until this year –
http://www.vote-smart.org/bio.php?can_id=S0421103
QUOTE
Roll Call Vote
Analysis
Year Voting Participation Party Support Presidential Support
2003 36%
100%
30%
2002 96%
92%
72%
2001 98%
98%
65%
2000 95%
96%
97%
1999 99%
95%
93%
In the mean time, George W Bush has set the record for most days on
vacation. April 9, 2004: Washington Post: "This is Bush's 33rd
visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days
on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News.
Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine,
Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats,
or more than 40 percent of his presidency."
]
You've
missed a lot of key votes: on tax policy, on energy, on Medicare reform.
Your
hometown newspaper has taken to calling you "Senator Gone." You've
got one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate.
Now, in
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.
[outright lies :
Cheney's lie about never meeting Edwards has been exposed repeatedly
and by many sources. However, the first part is actually a much bigger lie. As
Senate attendance records show, in the 126 Tuesdays the Senate has been in
session during Cheney's tenure as Vice-President, he has actually only presided
over the Senate as President on two occasions. During the same stretch, to fill
in for Cheney's repeated absence, Edwards has served as acting President of the
Senate on two occasions. The complete list in in the extended
copy. The source for this information is Congressional Record.
(from “Dave the pro”)]
In
respect to
I
personally think one of the reasons that we don't have as many suicide attacks
today in Israel as we've had in the past is because Saddam is no longer in
business.
[That’s a nonsense tie.
Suicide bombers don’t do it for money, they do
it because of deep beliefs and unrest.
Probably the Israeli military crackdown (shooting rockets at Palestinian
towns, bull-dozing houses) and the massive wall that
We've
been strong supporters of
But
first, there has to be an interlocutor you can trust and deal with. And we
won't have that, we don't have it now, in a Yasser
Arafat. There has to be reform of the Palestinian system.
[The Bush administration has not negotiated for peace in
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, it's your turn to use 30 seconds for a complicated response...
EDWARDS:
That was a complete distortion of my record. I know that won't come as a shock.
The
vice president, I'm surprised to hear him talk about records. When he was one
of 435 members of the United States House, he was one of 10 to vote against
Head Start, one of four to vote against banning plastic weapons that can pass
through metal detectors.
He
voted against the Department of Education. He voted against funding for Meals
on Wheels for seniors. He voted against a holiday for Martin Luther King. He
voted against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela in
It's
amazing to hear him criticize either my record or John Kerry's.
IFILL:
Thirty seconds.
CHENEY:
Oh, I think his record speaks for itself. And frankly, it's not very
distinguished.
IFILL:
In that case, we'll move on to domestic matters. And this question, I believe,
goes to Senator -- to Vice President Cheney.
The
Census Bureau...
CHENEY:
I think it goes to Senator Edwards.
IFILL:
It goes to the Senator. I see you. I just asked him about
CHENEY:
I concede the point.
[Cheney spent his time on personal attacks]
(LAUGHTER)
EDWARDS:
No, I did talk about it,
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, the Census Bureau ranked
You
two gentlemen are pretty well off. You did well for yourselves in the private
sector. What can you tell the people of
CHENEY:
Well, Gwen, there are several things that I think need to be done and are being
done.
We've,
of course, been through a difficult recession, and then the aftermath of 9/11,
where we lost over a million jobs after that attack. But we think the key is to
address some basic, fundamental issues that the president's already working on.
I
think probably the most successful thing we can do with respect to ending
poverty is to get people jobs. There's no better antidote to poverty than a
good, well-paying job that allows somebody to take care of their own family.
[This is nonsense; providing more money to business does not
correlate with more jobs unless more workers are needed. In our age of productivity and outsourcing,
this just means more cash for CEO’s and no new jobs.]
To do
that, we have to make
I'd
zero in, in particular, on education. I think the most important thing we can
do is have a first-class public school system. I'm a product of public schools.
And
the president, his first legislative priority was the No Child Left Behind Act. It was the first piece of legislation we
introduced.
We got
it passed that first summer on a bipartisan basis. We even had Ted Kennedy on
board for the effort.
And it
does several things. It establishes high standards. It, at the same time, sets
up a system of testing with respect to our school system, so we can establish
accountability to parents and make certain that they understand how well their
students are doing. And they have the opportunity to move students out of
poorly performing schools to good schools.
It
strikes me that that is absolutely the heart of what needs to be done from the
standpoint of education.
It's
also important, as we go forward in the next term, we
want to be able to take what we've done for elementary education and move it
into the secondary education.
It's
working. We've seen reports now of a reduction in the achievement gap between
majority students and minority students. We're making significant progress.
[It’s great that they support education. Unfortunately, they have not provided full
funding to No Child Left Behind, partly because the government is in such deep
debt from the tax cuts. Furthermore,
testing in itself does not improve schools.
Reducing the gap between the best and worst students is also not an
inherently good thing – it may simply mean bringing down the best; the goal
should be to improve the average. Many
struggling schools with poor students now get failing grades under NCLB and get
their funding cut, which just makes them worse.
All over the country, states are cutting funding for education because
they’re low on cash. For example :http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/feb2003/edu-f20.shtml]
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds.
EDWARDS:
Gwen, your question was about jobs?
IFILL:
It was about jobs, and it was about poverty.
EDWARDS:
I thought it was about jobs and poverty. I hope we get a chance to talk about
education, but that's what the vice president talked about.
Here's
what's happened: In the time that they have been in office, in the last four
years, 1.6 million private sector jobs have been lost, 2.7 million
manufacturing jobs have been lost. And it's had real consequences in places
like
During
the time that the vice president and the president have been in office, 4
million more Americans have fallen into poverty.
During
the time that the vice president and the president have been in office, 4
million more Americans have fallen into poverty.
And
what the most striking and startling thing is, they are the first presidency in
70 years -- and I'm talking Democrats, Republican, presidents who led us
through World War, through the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Cold War -- every
one of them created jobs until this president.
We
have to do better. We have a plan. We're going to get rid of -- by the way,
they're for outsourcing jobs. I want to make sure people hear that, the
fundamental difference with us. The administration says over and over that the
outsourcing of millions of American jobs is good. We're against it.
We
want to get rid of tax cuts for companies sending jobs overseas. We want to
balance this budget, get back to fiscal responsibility. And we want to invest
in the creative, innovative jobs of the future.
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President?
CHENEY:
Gwen, we've got 111 million American taxpayers that have benefited from our
income tax cuts.
[The tax cuts are very sneaky, because they phase-in over the years,
so they don’t look too bad in 2001 or 2002, but keep getting more extreme. The majority of tax payers got a tax cut of
$400 or less, increasing to $800 (or less) by 2010; by 2010, the top 1% of
Americans will get 50% of the value of the tax cut, an average of $85,000
each.
http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0602.htm]
We've
got 33 million students who've benefited from No Child Left Behind.
We've
got 40 million seniors who benefited from the reform of the Medicare system.
The Democrats promised prescription drug benefits. For years they've run on
that platform. They never got it done. The president got it done.
[The drug benefit as designed will be a massive government subsidy
to pharmaceutical companies].
We
also dropped 5 million people totally off the federal income tax rolls, so they
no longer have to pay any federal income tax at all.
[That’s a manipulation; that happens automatically with population
increase. They should be talking about
the % of the population at each level].
So the
story, I think, is a good one.
And
the data he's using is old data. It's from 2003. It doesn't include any of the
gains that we've made in the last years. We've added 1.7 million jobs to the
economy.
[By all counts, this is still the first president to preside over a
net loss of jobs since the Great Depression (
IFILL:
Thirty seconds.
EDWARDS:
The vice president and president like to talk about their experience on the
campaign trail. Millions of people have lost their jobs. Millions have fallen
into poverty. Family incomes are down, while the cost of everything is going
up.
Medical
costs are up the highest they've ever been over the last four years. We have
this mess in
Mr.
Vice President, I don't think the country can take four more years of this kind
of experience.
IFILL:
This next question goes to you, Senator Edwards.
Senator
Kerry said in a recent interview that he absolutely will not raise taxes on
anyone under -- who earns under $200,000 a year. How can he guarantee that and
also cut the deficit in half, as he's promised?
EDWARDS:
Because we will do what they've not done. You know, if you look at what's
happened over the last four years, we have gone from a $5 trillion projected
surplus when George Bush took office to a $3 trillion projected deficit.
They
promised they were going to put $2 trillion of the surplus aside from Social
Security. Not done.
Not
only that, it's the biggest fiscal turnaround in American history.
And
there's no end in sight. The Washington Post just reported they have several
trillion dollars of additional tax cuts and spending, no suggestion of what
they're going to do about it.
John
Kerry and I believe we have a moral responsibility not to leave trillions of
debt to our children and our grandchildren.
So
here's what we're going to do, to answer you question.
To pay
for the things that we believe need to be done -- and I hope to get the chance
to talk about health care and also about education, because we have plans on
both of those subjects -- what we're going to do is roll back tax cuts.
And I
want everyone to hear this, because there have been exaggerations made on the
campaign trail: Roll back tax cuts for people who make over $200,000 a year; we
will do that.
We
want to keep the tax cuts that are in place for people who make less than
$200,000 a year and give additional tax cuts to those middle-class families,
tax cuts for health care, tax cuts to help families pay for their college
tuition, tax cuts for child care.
These
families are struggling and hurting, and they need more tax relief, not less
tax relief.
But to
help get us back on the path to a balanced budget, we also want to get rid of
some of the bureaucratic spending in
One of
the amazing things that's happened is they've actually layered on more
supervisory people, people at the supervisory level, in this government.
We
also want to close some corporate loopholes.
Now, I
want to be honest with people. We can't eliminate this deficit. People have
heard that over and over and over in four years. We cannot do it. We're in too
deep a hole.
But we
can cut the deficit in half. And if we move, we can move this country back on a
path to fiscal responsibility.
IFILL:
You have 90 seconds, Mr. Vice President.
CHENEY:
Gwen, the Kerry record on taxes is one basically of voting for a large number
of tax increases -- 98 times in the United States Senate.
There's
a fundamental philosophical difference here between the president and myself,
who believe that we ought to let the American people keep more of what they
earn and we ought to empower them to have more control over their own lives --
I think the Kerry-Edwards approach basically is to raise taxes and to give government
more control over the lives of individual citizens.
We
think that's the wrong way to go. There's a fundamental difference of opinion
here.
They
talk about the top bracket and going after only those people in the top
bracket.
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.
That's
not smart because seven out of 10 new jobs in
You do
not want to tax them. It's a bad idea to increase the burden on those folks.
The
senator himself said, during the course of the primaries, that the Kerry plan
would drive us deeper into deficit. Those were the senator's word about his
running-mate.
The
fact of the matter is, the president and I will go
forward to make the tax cuts permanent. That's good policy. That's what we
ought to do. But with fiscal restraint, we'll also drive the deficit down 50
percent in the course of the next five years.
[The president has cut taxes on capital gains and inheritance, which
benefits no one but the very rich.]
IFILL:
Thirty seconds, Senator Edwards.
EDWARDS:
We are committed to cutting back anything in our programs that need to be cut
back to get us back on a path to fiscal responsibility.
John
Kerry, Mr. Vice President, has voted or co-sponsored over 600 times tax cuts
for the American people -- over 600 times.
And
there is a philosophical difference between us and them.
We are
for more tax cuts for the middle class than they're
for, have been for the last four years. But we are not for more tax cuts for
multimillionaires. They are.
And it
is a fundamental difference in what we think needs to be done in this country.
IFILL:
You have 30 seconds, Mr. Vice President.
CHENEY:
Yesterday, the president signed an extension of middle- class tax cuts, the 10
percent bracket, the marriage penalty relief and the increase in the child tax
credit.
Senators
Kerry and Edwards weren't even there to vote for it when it came to final
passage.
[This “not there to vote” attack is ridiculous. It’s standard
practice for campaigning politicians to be absent]
IFILL:
The next question goes to you, Mr. Vice President.
I want
to read something you said four years ago at this very setting: "Freedom
means freedom for everybody." You said it again recently when you were
asked about legalizing same-sex unions. And you used your family's experience
as a context for your remarks.
Can
you describe then your administration's support for a constitutional ban on
same-sex unions?
CHENEY:
Gwen, you're right, four years ago in this debate, the subject came up. And I
said then and I believe today that freedom does mean freedom for everybody.
People ought to be free to choose any arrangement they want. It's really no one
else's business.
That's
a separate question from the issue of whether or not government should sanction
or approve or give some sort of authorization, if you will, to these
relationships.
Traditionally,
that's been an issue for the states. States have regulated marriage, if you
will. That would be my preference.
In
effect, what's happened is that in recent months, especially in
And
the fact is that the president felt that it was important to make it clear that
that's the wrong way to go, as far as he's concerned.
Now,
he sets the policy for this administration, and I support the president.
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, 90 seconds.
EDWARDS:
Yes. Let me say first, on an issue that the vice president said in his last
answer before we got to this question, talking about tax policy, the country
needs to know that under what they have put in place and want to put in place,
a millionaire sitting by their swimming pool, collecting their statements to
see how much money they're making, make their money from dividends, pays a
lower tax rate than the men and women who are receiving paychecks for serving
on the ground in Iraq.
Now,
they may think that's right. John Kerry and I do not.
We
don't just value wealth, which they do. We value work in this country. And it
is a fundamental value difference between them and us.
Now,
as to this question, let me say first that I think the vice president and his
wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And you can't have
anything but respect for the fact that they're willing to talk about the fact
that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her. It's a wonderful
thing. And there are millions of parents like that who love their children, who
want their children to be happy.
And I
believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, and so does John Kerry.
I also
believe that there should be partnership benefits for gay and lesbian couples
in long-term, committed relationships.
But we
should not use the Constitution to divide this country.
No
state for the last 200 years has ever had to recognize another state's
marriage.
This
is using the Constitution as a political tool, and it's wrong.
IFILL:
New question, but same subject.
As the
vice president mentioned, John Kerry comes from the state of
Are
you trying to have it both ways?
EDWARDS:
No. I think we've both said the same thing all along.
We
both believe that -- and this goes onto the end of what I just talked about --
we both believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.
But we
also believe that gay and lesbians and gay and lesbian couples, those who have
been in long-term relationships, deserve to be treated respectfully, they
deserve to have benefits.
For
example, a gay couple now has a very difficult time, one, visiting the other
when they're in the hospital, or, for example, if, heaven forbid, one of them
were to pass away, they have trouble even arranging the funeral.
I
mean, those are not the kind of things that John Kerry and I believe in. I
suspect the vice president himself does not believe in that.
But we
don't -- we do believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman.
And I
want to go back, if I can, to the question you just asked, which is this
constitutional amendment.
I want
to make sure people understand that the president is proposing a constitutional
amendment to ban gay marriage that is completely unnecessary.
Under
the law of this country for the last 200 years, no state has been required to
recognize another state's marriage.
Let me
just be simple about this. My state of
There
is absolutely no purpose in the law and in reality for this amendment. It's
nothing but a political tool. And it's being used in an effort to divide this
country on an issue that we should not be dividing
We
ought to be talking about issues like health care and jobs and what's happening
in
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds.
CHENEY:
Well, Gwen, let me simply thank the senator for the kind words he said about my
family and our daughter. I appreciate that very much.
IFILL:
That's it?
CHENEY:
That's it.
IFILL:
OK, then we'll move on to the next question.
This
one is for you, Mr. Vice President. President Bush has derided in John Kerry
for putting a trial lawyer on the ticket. You yourself have said that lawsuits
are partly to blame for higher medical costs. Are you willing to say that John
Edwards, sitting here, has been part of the problem?
(LAUGHTER)
CHENEY:
Well, Gwen...
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President?
(LAUGHTER)
CHENEY: First of all, I'm not familiar with his cases. My concern is
specifically with what's happened to our medical care system because of rising
malpractice insurance rates, because we failed to adequately reform our medical
liability structure.
[That’s a lie; the administration has repeatedly attacked Edwards as
a trial lawyer. They don’t specifically
attack his cases, but they say “Edwards is a trial lawyer” and then attack
trial lawyers.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N06540712.htm
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/07/20020725-1.html
A good history of Edwards and trial lawyers –
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0110.green.html
]
I was
in
And
they were deeply concerned because they were fearful that there'd be another
increase in malpractice insurance rates as a result of what they believe are
frivolous lawsuits and that that would put them out of business.
[Citing OB/GYN is a bit of a distortion, since they have the highest
malpractice rates by far. In general, he
has a reasonable point, but it’s also important to realize that suits have
forced the medical establishment to improve their practices greatly, such as
preventing residents from doing complicated surgery, etc.]
And
one doctor indicated that her rates have gone up so much that she's now to the
point where she is screening patients. She won't take high-risk patients
anymore because of the danger that that will generate a lawsuit, and a lawsuit
will put her out of business.
This
has had a devastating impact in a lot of communities. My home state of
We
think this has a devastating impact on the quality of health care.
As I
say, high risk patients don't get covered anymore. We've lost one out of eleven
OB/GYN practitioners in the country. We think it can be fixed, needs to be
fixed.
Now,
specifically, what we need to do is cap non-economic damages, and we also think
you need to limit the awards that the trial attorneys take out of all of this.
Over 50 percent of the settlements go to the attorneys and for administrating
overhead.
We
passed medical liability reform through the House of Representatives. It's been
blocked in the Senate. Senator Kerry's voted 10 times against medical liability
reform, and I don't believe Senator Edwards supports it, either, not the kind
that would be meaningful.
IFILL:
Senator Edwards?
EDWARDS:
Yes. Well let me say, first of all, I'm proud of the work I did on behalf of
kids and families against big insurance companies, big drug companies and big
HMOs.
We do
have too many lawsuits. And the reality is there's something that we can do
about it.
John
Kerry and I have a plan to do something about it. We want to put more
responsibility on the lawyers to require, before a case, malpractice, which the
vice president just spoke about, have the case reviewed by independent experts
to determine if the case is serious and meritorious before it can be filed;
hold the lawyers responsible for that, certify that and hold the lawyer
financially responsible if they don't do it; have a
three-strikes-and-you're-out rule so that a lawyer who files three of these
cases without meeting this requirement loses their right to file these cases.
That
way we keep the cases out of the system that don't belong in the system. They
talk about frivolous cases. We believe cases that don't belong in the system
should never be in the system.
But we
don't believe that we should take away the right of people like Valerie Lakey,
who was the young girl who I represented, five years old, severely injured for
life, on a defective swimming pool drain cover.
It
turns out the company knew of 12 other children who had either been killed or
severely injured by the same problem. They hid it. They didn't tell anybody.
They could have fixed it with a 2-cent screw. That's wrong.
John
Kerry and I are always going to stand with the Valerie Lakeys of the world, and
not with the insurance companies.
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, new question to you, same topic. Do you feel personally
attacked when Vice President Cheney talks about liability reform and tort
reform and the president talks about having a trial lawyer on the ticket?
EDWARDS:
Am I personally attacked?
I
think the truth is that what they're doing is talking about an issue that
really doesn't have a great deal to do with what's happening with medical
policy in this country, which I think is a very serious issue.
And I
would be the first to say that what the vice president described a few minutes
ago, problems with malpractice premiums, that's true, it's real. It's very
real. What doctors talk about is very serious.
And
they're getting squeezed from both sides. I mean, because, they have trouble
getting reimbursed, first of all, for the care that they provide, you know,
from the government or from health-care companies. And, on the flip side, their
malpractice costs are going up.
That's
very real, which is why we have proposed a plan to keep cases out of the system
that don't belong there.
But
it's very important to put this in context. Because, in context, everything
they're proposing, according to the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office,
amounts to about half of 1 percent of health-care costs in this country -- half
of 1 percent.
We have
double-digit inflation in health care costs. We've seen the largest rise in
medical costs in the last four years in the country's history: $3,500
nationally. And nobody who's watching this debate needs me to explain this to
them. They know it.
Medicare
premiums are up 17 percent on their watch. Again, largest
increase in Medicare premiums in the history of Medicare.
We
think we have a plan to keep cases that don't belong in the system out, but we
also do what they haven't done.
Five
million Americans have lost their health care coverage. Medical costs are
skyrocketing. We have a serious health care plan to bring down costs for
everybody, to cover millions more Americans and to actually stand up to drug
companies and insurance companies which this administration has been unwilling
to do.
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President?
CHENEY:
Gwen, we think lawsuit abuse is a serious problem in this country. We think we
badly need tort reform.
[The administration has often moved to protect companies from
litigation that tries to hold them responsible for malfeasance.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4429245/
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Oil_Immunity_103003.htm
]
I was
in
He
told me that if it weren't for the increased cost of his liability insurance,
in this case product liability, he could hire 200 more people in his factory.
We've built into the system enormous costs as a result of our practice with
respect to litigation. We have to find ways to get a handle on it.
He
mentioned Medicare up 17 percent, somehow that that was something we caused.
No. The 17 percent increase in Medicare premiums was the direct result of a
statute adopted in 1997. John Kerry voted for it.
[Distortion. Kerry’s vote didn’t increase Medicare
premiums, rising costs did.]
It
establishes the formula for Part B of Medicare that says, in effect, it has to
cover 25 percent of the cost of the program. And the reason the money had to go
into the trust fund was to make certain that we could cover those eligible for
benefits.
While
you were in private practice in law and as a senator, you had the advantage of
a special tax loophole, Subchapter S corporation,
which you set up so you could avoid paying $600,000 in Medicare taxes that
would have gone into the fund.
And
it's those kinds of loopholes that necessitate a premium increase under the law
that was enacted in 1997, supported by John Kerry.
IFILL:
You have 30 seconds to respond.
EDWARDS:
Well, first of all, I have paid all the taxes that I owe.
When
the vice president was CEO of Halliburton, they took advantage of every
offshore loophole available. They had multiple offshore companies that were
avoiding taxes.
Those
are the kind of things that ought to be closed. They ought to be closed. They
ought to be closed for anybody. They ought to be closed whether they're
personal, and they ought to be closed whether they apply to a corporation.
But
the reality is health care costs are going up every day for the American
people, and I hope we're going to get a chance to talk more about health care.
IFILL:
Thirty seconds, Mr. Vice President.
CHENEY:
We've done a lot to reduce the cost of health care. The Medicare drug benefit
that we'll be providing to seniors beginning in '06 will provide upwards to
$1,300 a year to help them buy prescription drugs.
The
drug savings -- drug discount card that's now available saves an estimated 15
percent to 30 percent off the cost of prescription drugs for senior citizens.
So
we're moving in as many areas as we can to make certain we hold down and reduce
the health care costs.
IFILL:
I will talk to you about health care, Mr. Vice President. You have two minutes.
But in particular, I want to talk to you about AIDS, and not about AIDS in
What
should the government's role be in helping to end the growth of this epidemic?
CHENEY:
Well, this is a great tragedy, Gwen, when you think about the enormous cost
here in the
In
some parts of the world, we've got the entire, sort of, productive generation
has been eliminated as a result of AIDS, all except for old folks and kids --
nobody to do the basic work that runs an economy.
The
president has been deeply concerned about it. He has moved and proposed and
gotten through the Congress authorization for $15 billion to help in the
international effort, to be targeted in those places where we need to do
everything we can, through a combination of education as well as providing the
kinds of medicines that will help people control the infection.
[This administration has cut funding for international organizations
that fight AIDs because of un-substantiated claims they provided abortions.
http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=6723
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3885629.stm
]
Here
in the
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds.
EDWARDS:
Well, first, with respect to what's happening in
And I
might add, on the first year of their commitment, they came up significantly
short of what they had promised.
And we
probably won't get a chance to talk about
The
AIDS epidemic in Africa, which is killing millions and millions of people and
is a frightening thing not just for the people of Africa but also for the rest
of the world, that, combined with the genocide that we're now seeing in Sudan,
are two huge moral issues for the United States of America, which John Kerry
spoke about eloquently last Thursday night.
Here
at home we need to do much more. And the vice president spoke about doing
research, making sure we have the drugs available, making sure that we do
everything possible to have prevention. But it's a bigger question than that.
You
know, we have 5 million Americans who've lost their health care coverage in the
last four years; 45 million Americans without health care coverage. We have
children who don't have health care coverage.
If
kids and adults don't have access to preventative care, if they're not getting
the health care that they need day after day after day, the possibility of not
only developing AIDS and having a problem -- having a problem -- a life-threatening
problem, but the problem of developing other life-threatening diseases is there
every day of their lives.
IFILL:
OK, we'll move on.
This
goes to you, Senator Edwards, and you have two minutes.
Ten
men and women have been nominees of their parties since 1976 to be vice
president. Out of those ten, you have the least governmental experience of any
of them.
What
qualifies you to be a heartbeat away?
EDWARDS:
The American people want in their president and in their vice president
basically three things: They want to know that their president and their vice
president will keep them safe. They want to know that they have good judgment.
And they want to know that you'll tell them the truth.
John
Kerry and I will tell the American people the truth.
During
the time that I have served on the Intelligence Committee in the Senate,
traveling to some of the places we've talked about tonight -- Afghanistan,
Pakistan, the Middle East, Turkey -- meeting with the leaders of NATO, I have a
very clear idea of what has to be done to keep this country safe.
The
threats we face: terrorism, killing terrorists and stopping them before they
can do damage to us, making sure that we stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
I
agree with John Kerry from Thursday night, that the danger of nuclear weapons
getting in the hands of terrorists is one of the greatest threats that
But
the one thing that we know from this administration is -- and I -- first of
all, I don't claim to have the long political resume that Vice President Cheney
has. That's just the truth, and the American people know that and deserve to
know it. But what we know from this administration is that a long resume does
not equal good judgment.
Here
are the judgments I would make: My first priority would be to keep this country
safe. I would find terrorists where they are and stop them and kill them before
they do harm to us.
We
would stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
And we
would also strengthen this military, which means providing the equipment and
training that they need.
We
want to raise the active-duty forces by 40,000, double the special
forces so we can find terrorists where they are, and provide the kind of
support for families -- health care, housing -- that they deserve while their
loved ones are serving and protecting us. IFILL: Mr. Vice President, you have
90 seconds.
CHENEY:
You want me to answer a question about his qualifications?
IFILL:
That was the question.
CHENEY:
I see.
Well,
I think the important thing in picking a vice president probably varies from
president to president. Different presidents approach it in different ways.
When
George Bush asked me to sign on, it obviously wasn't because he was worried
about carrying
What
he said he wanted me to do was to sign on because of my experience to be a
member of the team, to help him govern, and that's exactly the way he's used
me.
And I
think from the perspective of the nation, it's worked in our relationship, in
this administration. I think it's worked in part because I made it clear that I
don't have any further political aspirations myself. And I think that's been an
advantage.
I
think it allows the president to know that my only agenda is his agenda. I'm
not worried about what some precinct committeemen in
It's a
very significant responsibility when you consider that at a moment's notice you
may have to take over as president of the
And I
think that probably is the most important consideration in picking a vice
president, somebody who could take over.
IFILL:
You have 30 seconds, if you'd like to respond to that.
EDWARDS:
I think the most important thing I've learned from this process is what I now
know about John Kerry. I knew him before. I know him better now.
He's
the one candidate who's led troops in battle. He was a prosecutor, putting
people behind bars to protect neighborhoods from crime. He fought for 100,000
cops on the street, and went with John McCain to
And
the American people saw for themselves on Thursday night the strength, resolve,
and backbone that I, myself, have seen in John Kerry.
He is
ready to be commander in chief. IFILL: Mr. Vice President, you have 30 seconds
to respond.
CHENEY:
Well, I clearly believe that George W. Bush would be a better commander in
chief. He's already done it for four years.
And
he's demonstrated, without question, the conviction, the vision, the
determination to win this war against terror. He understands it's a global
conflict that reaches from the
And
those very special qualities are vital in a commander in chief. And I think the
president has them, and I'm not at all convinced his opponent does.
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, picking up on that, you both just sang the praises of the
tops of your ticket.
Without
mentioning them by name at all, explain to us why you are different from your
opponent, starting with you, Mr. Vice President.
CHENEY:
Why I am different from John Edwards. Well, in some respects, I think, probably
there are more similarities than there are differences in our personal story.
I
don't talk about myself very much, but I've heard Senator Edwards, and as I
listen to him, I find some similarities.
I come
from relatively modest circumstances. My grandfather never even went to high
school. I'm the first in my family to graduate from college.
I
carried a ticket in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for six
years. I've been laid off, been hospitalized without health insurance. So I
have some idea of the problems that people encounter.
So I
think the personal stories are, in some respects, surprisingly similar.
With
respect to how we've spent our careers, I obviously made a choice for public service.
And I've been at it for a good long time now, except for those periods when we
lost elections. And that goes with the turf, as well, too.
I'm
absolutely convinced that the threat we face now, the idea of a terrorist in
the middle of one of our cities with a nuclear weapon, is very real and that we
have to use extraordinary measures to deal with it.
I feel
very strongly that the significance of 9/11 cannot be underestimated. It forces
us to think in new ways about strategy, about national security, about how we
structure our forces and about how we use
Some
people say we should wait until we are attacked before we use force. I would
argue we've already been attacked. We lost more people on 9/11 than we lost at
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds.
EDWARDS:
Mr. Vice President, we were attacked. But we weren't attacked by Saddam
Hussein. And one thing that John Kerry and I would agree with you about is that
it is...
IFILL:
You just used John Kerry's name.
EDWARDS:
Oh, I'm sorry. I broke the rule.
One
thing that we agree about is the need to be offensive in going after
terrorists.
The
reality is that the best defense is a good offense, which means leading --
America returning to its proud tradition of the last 75 years, of once again
leading strong coalitions so we can get at these terrorist cells where they
are, before they can do damage to us and to the American people.
John
Kerry made clear on Thursday night that -- I'm sorry, I broke the rules. We
made clear -- we made clear on Thursday night that we will do that, and we will
do it aggressively.
But
there are things that need to be done to keep this country safe that have not
yet been done.
For
example, three years after 9/11, we find out that the administration still does
not have a unified terrorist watch list. It's amazing. Three years. What are we
waiting for? You know, we still don't have one list that everyone can work off
of to see if terrorists are entering this country.
We're
screening our passengers going onto airplanes, but we don't screen the cargo.
There
are so many things that could be done to keep this country safe.
You
have to be strong, and you have to be aggressive. But we also have to be smart.
And there are things that have not been done that need to be done to keep the
American people safe.
IFILL:
Would you like to respond? Thirty seconds.
CHENEY:
No.
IFILL:
OK, we'll move on. This goes to Senator Edwards.
Flip-flopping
has become a recurring theme in this campaign, you may have noticed.
Senator
Kerry changed his mind about whether to vote to authorize the president to go
to war. President Bush changed his mind about whether a homeland security
department was a good idea or a 9/11 Commission was a good idea.
What's
wrong with a little flip-flop every now and then?
EDWARDS:
Well, first of all, let me say that John Kerry has -- I can use his name now?
IFILL:
Yes.
EDWARDS:
OK. John Kerry has been, as have I, been completely consistent about
[I hate this argument; they should say that they voted for the war
because the administration said Saddam had WMD’s. That was a lie, and knowing what they know
now, they would not have voted for the war.]
And
the vice president didn't say much about it in your earlier question, but Paul
Bremer has now made clear that they didn't have enough troops and they didn't
have a plan.
And
the American people are seeing the results of that every single day, in spite
of the proud and courageous service of our men and women in uniform.
Now,
flip-flops: They should know something about flip-flops. They've seen a lot of
it during their administration.
[ http://flipflops.compassiongate.com/
]
They
were first against the 9/11 Commission; then they were for it. They were for a
department of homeland security -- I mean, they were against the Department of
Homeland Security; then they were for it.
They
said they were going to put $2 trillion of the surplus when they came into
office aside to protect Social Security; then they changed their minds. They
said that they supported the troops; and then while our troops were on the
ground in
They
said that they were going to do something about health care in this country.
And they've done something: They've made it worse.
They
said that they were going to fund their No Child Left Behind; $27 billion short
today.
Over
and over, this administration has said one thing and done another.
This
president said -- I listened to him the other night at his 2000 debate saying:
I'm for a national patients bill of rights.
I know
something about this. John McCain and Senator Kennedy and I wrote it, got it
passed in the Senate. We don't have a patients bill of
rights because of one man today, the president of the
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President?
CHENEY:
Well, Gwen, I can think of a lot of words to describe Senator Kerry's position
on
I
think if you look at the record from voting for sending the troops then voting
against the resources they needed when they got there, then saying I actually
voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it, saying in response to a
question knowing everything I know now, yes, I would have cast exactly the same
vote and then shortly after that saying wrong war, wrong place, wrong time,
consistency doesn't come to mind as I consider that record.
[See previous notes on the $87 billion]
The
question of troops is an interesting and important one. We have looked to our
commanders on the ground in
[They have asked, repeatedly, and before the war. Rumsfeld decided they weren’t needed, because
he wanted to show that “Shock and Awe” would work.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/grichar11.html
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article2782.html
]
But
the key here is not to try to solve the problems in
If you
put American troops in there in larger number and don't get the Iraqis into the
fight, you'll postpone the day when you can in fact bring our boys home. It's
vital that we deal with any need for additional troops by putting Iraqis into
the effort.
Forty-nine
percent increase in funding for elementary and secondary education under No
Child Left Behind; that's a lot of money even by
IFILL:
You have 30 seconds if you choose.
EDWARDS:
Yes, but they didn't fund the mandates that they put on the schools all over
this country. That's the reason 800 teachers -- one of the reasons -- 800
teachers have been laid off, right here in
John
and I have -- and I don't have the time now -- but we have a clear plan to
improve our public schools that starts with getting our best teachers into the
schools where we need them the most by creating incentives for them to go
there.
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President?
CHENEY:
Gwen, No Child Left Behind, they were for it; now they're against it. They
voted for it; now they're opposed to it.
[Lie. He never said he was
against it, he said it should be funded properly.]
We are
making significant progress there. We are closing the achievement gap. The
results coming in from a number of studies show, without question, that on math
and reading, that in fact our minority students, our Hispanic and
African-American students are doing better, and that gap between them and the
majority population is, in fact, closing.
So we
are doing exactly the right thing. They're the ones who have been for the
Patriot Act and against it, for No Child Left Behind and then against it.
[Lies; see previous notes]
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, our final -- I'm sorry, you have 30 seconds, Senator
Edwards.
EDWARDS:
Are you sure -- yes, he started. Yes, 30 seconds, please, yes.
We are
for accountability, and we are for high standards. John and I voted for No
Child Left Behind because we thought that accountability and standards were the right thing to do.
But
they make -- did you figure out you were wrong?
IFILL:
I did figure out I was wrong.
EDWARDS:
Well, in fairness, if you feel like you need to go to him, we'll -- I'll stop.
IFILL:
Well, I do, because we're actually on the final question. I apologize for
giving you an extra 15 seconds there. I go now to Vice President Cheney.
Which
ever one of you is elected in November -- you mentioned those three electoral
votes in
But
what they're a sign of also is that you're going to inherit a very deeply
divided electorate, economically, politically, you name it.
How
will you set out, Mr. Vice President, in a way that you weren't able to in
these past four years, to bridge that divide?
CHENEY:
Well, I must say it's one of the disappointments of the last four years, is
that we've not been able to do what the president did in
We had
some success early on, I think, in No Child Left Behind, when we, in fact, had
broad, bipartisan support.
We had
a lot of support for the Patriot Act, when we passed that on a bipartisan
basis. Now we're seeing objection to that by the other side. All I know is to
continue to try to work it.
[Wow, this president is the most partisan divisive president we’ve
ever had, and he tries to blame it on the other side? The Patriot Act has stripped away our privacy
and civil liberties and done nothing substantial to improve security.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2087984/
Uniting the country is about compromise and accepting others’
ideas. This administration has shown
zero desire to do that.]
It's a
disappointment, in a sense, that I remember from my earlier service when things
worked much differently, when, in fact, some of my best friends in the Congress
were people I worked with, like Tom Foley, who was a majority leader and later
speaker of the House. One of my strongest allies in Congress when I secretary
of defense was Jack Murtha, a Democrat who is chairman of the Defense
Appropriations Subcommittee.
We
used to be able to do more together on a bipartisan basis than seems possible
these days. I'm not sure exactly why. I think, in part, it may be the change in
the majority-minority status in the Senate has been difficult for both sides to
adjust to.
And
the Senate, of course, has been very evenly divided, 50-50, then 51-49, then
49-51 the other way.
We'll
keep working at it.
I
think it's important for us to try. I believe that it is essential for us to do
everything we can to garner as much support from the other side of the aisle as
possible. We've had support -- we had our keynote address at our convention was
delivered by Zell Miller. So there are some Democrats who agree with our
approach.
And
hopefully in a second term, we'll see an improvement along those lines.
IFILL:
Senator, there's 90 seconds.
EDWARDS:
Thank you.
The
president said that he would unite this country, that he was a uniter, not a
divider.
Have
you ever seen
The
reality is it is not an accident. It's the direct result of the choices they've
made and their efforts that have created division in
Now I
want to go back to the whole issue of health care, because we touched it, but I
think the American people deserve to know what we would do different.
I
mean, 5 million people losing their health care -- everyone who's watching this
knows health insurance premiums are through the roof.
We
need to talk about what we will do that they haven't done.
First,
we're going to make the same health care that's available to members of Congress
available to all Americans. We're going to cover all kids.
Not
only that, we're going to bring down costs by pooling the catastrophic costs so
we bring down premiums.
And
we're going to give tax breaks directly to families, save them up to $1,000 a
year, and to businesses -- the vice president talked about that a few minutes
ago -- so that they can provide health care to their employees.
And
we're also going to finally do something about the cost of prescription drugs.
They've
blocked allowing prescription drugs into this country from
They
would not allow the government to use its negotiating power to get discounts
for seniors. We're going to allow it.
We're
also going to stand up to the drug companies and do something about these drug
company ads on television which are out of control.
IFILL:
You have 30 seconds to respond to that, Mr. Vice President.
CHENEY:
Well, Gwen -- I'm sorry, it's hard to know where to start.
The
fact of the matter is, the most important and significant change in health care
in the last several years was the Medicare reform bill this year. It's the most
sweeping change in 40 years.
Medicare
used to pay for heart bypass surgery but didn't pay for the prescription drugs
that might allow you to avoid it.
The
fact is that when that came up, Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards voted against
it. It'll provide prescription drug benefits to 40 million senior citizens.
It's a very, very significant piece of legislation.
IFILL:
Thirty seconds.
EDWARDS:
They had a choice on allowing prescription drugs into this country from
They
had a choice on negotiating discounts in the Medicare prescription drug bill of
being with the American people or with the drug companies. They were with the
drug companies.
They
had a choice on the patients' bill of rights, allowing people to make their own
health care decisions and not having insurance companies make them, be with the
American people, be with the big insurance companies.
They're
with the insurance companies.
John
Kerry and I will always fight for the American people.
IFILL:
As previously agreed, we'll go to closing statements now, two minutes each.
Coin
toss, Senator Edwards, you begin.
EDWARDS:
Thank you.
Thank
you, Gwen.
Thank
you, Mr. Vice President, for being here.
You
know, when I was young and growing up, I remember coming down the steps into
the kitchen, early in the morning, and I would see the glow of the television.
And
I'd see my father sitting at a table. He wasn't paying bills, and he wasn't
doing paperwork from work.
What
he was doing was learning math on television.
Now,
he didn't have a college education, but he was doing what he could do to get a
better job in the mill where he worked. I was proud of him. I'm still proud of
him.
And I
was also hopeful, because I knew that I lived in a country where I could get a
college education.
Here's
the truth: I have grown up in the bright light of
Now, I
know that the vice president and the president don't see it, but you do.
You
see it when your incomes are going down and the cost of everything -- college
tuition, health care -- is going through the roof. You see it when you sit at
your table each night and there's an empty chair because a loved one is serving
in
John
Kerry and I believe that we can do better. We believe in a strong middle-class
in this country. That's why we have a plan to create jobs, getting rid of tax
cuts for companies outsourcing your jobs; give tax cuts to companies that'll
keep jobs here in
That's
why we have a health care plan. That's why we have a plan to keep you safe and
to fix this mess in
The
truth is that every four years you get to decide. You have the ability to
decide where
IFILL:
Vice President Cheney?
CHENEY:
Gwen, I want to thank you.
It's
been a privilege to serve as your vice president these last four years and to
work alongside President Bush to put our economy on an upward path.
We've
cut taxes, added 1.7 million new jobs in the last year, and we'll continue to
provide opportunities for business and for workers.
[The tax cut was planned before we went into a recession – it was
never intended as a boost to the economy, it’s a gift to the rich. The administration has presided over a loss
of jobs.]
We
won't be happy until every American who wants to work can find a job.
We
believe that all Americans ought to have access to available -- to medical care
and that they ought to have access to the finest schools in the world.
We'll
do everything we can to preserve Social Security and to make certain that it's
there for future generations.
[But they’re provided no funding for medical care, education, or
social security !?
The tax is a lot of hot air and un-fulfilled promises]
I've
worked for four presidents and watched two others up close, and I know that
there's no such thing as a routine day in the Oval Office.
We saw
on 9/11 that the next president -- next decision a president has to make can
affect the lives of all of us.
[Such as this administration’s decisions before 9/11 not to pursue
Al Qaeda, or all the reports of terrorists active inside the United States, or
to listen to Richard Clarke, the anti-terrorism coordinator?]
Now we
find ourselves in the midst of a conflict unlike any we've ever known, faced
with the possibility that terrorists could smuggle a deadly biological agent or
a nuclear weapon into the middle of one of our own cities.
That
threat -- and the presidential leadership needed to deal with it -- is placing
a special responsibility on all of you who will decide on November 2nd who will
be our commander in chief.
[He implies we’ll be attacked if you don’t vote for Bush, which is a
continuation of the fear-mongering and manipulation this administration has
practiced since 9/11]
The
only viable option for winning the war on terrorism is the one the president
has chosen, to use the power of the United States to aggressively go after the
terrorists wherever we find them and also to hold to account states that
sponsor terror.
Now
that we've captured or killed thousands of Al Qaida and taken down the regimes
of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, it's important that we stand up
democratically elected governments as the only guarantee that they'll never
again revert to terrorism or the production of deadly weapons.
This
is the task of our generation. And I know firsthand the strength the president
brings to it.
The
overall outcome will depend upon the ability of the American people and the
strong leadership of the president to meet all the challenges that we'll face
in the days and years ahead.
I'm
confident we can do it.
IFILL:
And with that, we come to the end of tonight's debate.
On
behalf of the commission and the candidates, I'd like to extend a special thank
you to the students and administration here at Case Western Reserve University.
A
reminder: The second presidential debate takes place this coming Friday at
Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Charles Gibson of ABC News will
serve as moderator of that encounter, where the candidates will field questions
from an audience.
Then,
on October 13th, from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, Bob Schieffer
of CBS News will moderate a debate on domestic issues.
For
now, thank you, Vice President Cheney, Senator Edwards.
From
Cleveland, Ohio, I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you, and goodnight.
(APPLAUSE)