MSNBC Countdown w/ Lawrence O'Donnell - 30 Oct. 2009: Interview w/ RIchard Wolffe.
O'DONNELL: "When President Obama honored our Afghanistan war dead by taking part in a military ritual at Dover Air Force Base yesterday, it was easily predictable that a Republican would criticize him for it. And in our fourth story on the Countdown, the former Vice President's pet attack dog, his daughter Liz Cheney, has now done just that. And once again, she wasn't going to let the facts get in the way.
On the John Gibson radio show yesterday, Ms. Cheney was rehashing her father's fact-free critique of President Obama's war in Afghanistan, then Mr. Gibson asked her about the President's appearance at Dover Air Force Base."
LIZ CHENEY (RADIO AUDIO): "I don't know why he went to Dover. I mean, I think that clearly it is very important for a commander-in-chief, whenever he can in whatever way it possible, to pay tribute to our fallen soldiers, our fallen military folks. But, I think, you know, what President Bush used to do was to it without the cameras, and I don't understand sort of showing up with the White House Press Pool with photographers and asking the family if you can take pictures. I just... that's really hard for me to get my head around. I think it's an honorable and important thing for us to pay tribute. There's no greater sacrifice people make to the nation. But, it was a surprising way for the President to choose to do it."
O'DONNELL: "As we mentioned yesterday, President Bush NEVER went to Dover Air Force Base to honor dead American soldiers on their final journey. And Vice President Cheney... never did either.
Hey, Liz. Have you ever lost a relative in battle? I have. My cousin Johnny, West Point graduate like his father before him. I wish the President or the Vice President had met his casket on the way home.
You know what 'never' means, Liz? It means ZERO. It means that in over seven years of two wars, your dad never left the comfort of his White House office or the Vice President's mansion and got himself up to Dover to bear witness to how his warmongering fell on families of dead American soldiers. Never, not once.
Liz, don't let your dad do this to you. Don't let him parade you onto the stage to defend the indefensible. Let him suffer the full weight of the shame that we know he must feel when he watches Barack Obama do what he never had the decency to do.
President Bush DID meet with grieving military families in private, and he went to military hospitals to visit the wounded. As for Ms. Cheney's reference to cameras, the policy of banning media coverage of coffins continued unaltered throughout the Bush administration. Thus, even families that WANTED media coverage of their loved one's ceremony were not given any choice in the matter.
Futhermore, President Obama did NOT make any special requests to any of yesterday's eighteen families as Ms. Cheney implies, I mean LIES. The vast majority of those families had already made their individual decisions about media coverage under the current policy BEFORE the notification that President Obama would be part of the ceremony.
As for Dick Cheney, when he was Vice President, he sometimes met with the war wounded, but like President Bush, he never went to Dover, either. Never.
And a reminder, Mr. Cheney successfully sought out FIVE deferments from the draft to avoid having to serve his country in the Vietnam War. Mr. Cheney's fifth and final deferment a result of his wife's becoming pregnant with Liz. Mr. Cheney was granted a 3A status, the hardship exemption by his draft board, which was available to men with children at that time."
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