STUBBORN THINGS.(The Talk of the Town)

Nicholas Lemann on the Bush Presidency

Nicholas Lemann talks about the real George W. Bush

Philip Gourevitch on following John Kerry into the homestretch

Anthony Lane on the films of Ronald Reagan

Folder: The 2004 Campaign

"In your capacity as Vice-President," John Edwards did not say to Dick Cheney in their televised debate from Cleveland last week, "you are supposed to be the president of the Senate and the presiding officer. And, frankly, Mr. Vice-President, your record is not very distinguished. You're hardly ever in the room. I mean, I've sat in that big chair presiding over the Senate way more often than you have, and it's not even my job. Apart from being a spare tire, presiding over the Senate is the one and only task entrusted to you under the Constitution of the United States. Why have you chosen to skip out on your Constitutional duty? Is this like Vietnam, Mr. Vice-President--another case where you had 'other priorities'?"

Senator Edwards, to repeat, did not say this or anything like it. If he had said it he would not have been doing violence to the facts; he would merely have been making a fool of himself. What he did say was that Halliburton, the company of which Cheney was C.E.O. before he became Vice-President, has, among other bad-sounding things, done business with "sworn enemies of the United States" (the allusion was to Libya and Iran), paid big fines for providing false financial information to stockholders, battened on a no-bid, multibillion-dollar contract for work in Iraq, and come under investigation for bribing foreign officials. Evidently provoked by this recitation (accurate enough as far as it went, if unfair in its insinuation of personal corruption on Cheney's part), the Vice-President growled: