Shouldnt Dick Cheney be

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Shouldn’t Dick Cheney be catching a little more grief for refusing on Meet The Press to disavow the scurrilous Republican ad which likens Tom Daschle to Saddam Hussein? (Why are they on the same team, you ask? Because both oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, of course. Actually, I missed Saddam’s announcement when he came out against. I must not have been paying attention.)

MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you an ad in South Dakota, and you mentioned Senator Tom Daschle, and this was paid for by the Family Research Council out there. Saddam Hussein and Tom Daschle juxtaposed. That’s a little over the line, isn’t it?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I’m not responsible for the ad, and you flashed it so fast I didn’t have a chance to read the copy. But there is a disagreement with respect to Senator Daschle on energy. The House of Representatives has moved and passed an energy bill last summer. The Senate has not acted. Tom pulled it out of the Energy Committee, so they’re not even considering in committee an energy bill at this point. The House has passed a stimulus package. The Senate has yet to act. The House just passed trade promotion authority. The Senate has yet to act. In the energy area, it’s extraordinarily important that we move for energy security, energy independence. We’re never going to get all the way over to energy independence, but given the volatility of the Middle East and our increasing dependence on that part of the world for oil, it’s important we go forward, for example, with things like ANWR.

Dick “you flashed it so fast I didn’t have a chance to read the copy” Cheney.

Can’t we do a little better than that?

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