Fair enough, but one of the times Cheney did preside was on the 7th of Jan 2003. According to the roll call vote, Edwards was present that day to vote nay on whether or not to adjorn. So Cheney has seen Edward’s not only at ceremonys and breakfasts, but actually presided over the senate while Edwards was on the floor to vote.
So Cheney:
Has met Edwards on multiple occasions
Is not normally on the Senate floor, where one could actually see if a senator was there often or not.
Of the two times He has presided in the last two years, Edward’s was there at least once(apparently there weren’t any votes the second time, atleast not that I could find a record of).
You appear quite knowledgeable about the Senate, so I am sure that you know that most senators use proxy votes for business meetings. And, as Brutus pointed out, the average Judiciary Committee attendence rate for its meetings during that period is 49 percent. To call an abscence “inexcusable” is simply hyperbole. I have no illusions that Edwards’ attendence wasn’t great, but you’re trying to make mountains out of molehills.
You’re completely right. However much time Cheney did or did not spend presiding is a red herring.
Yes, you’re right. The rooms are certainly no more than 50 steps apart. But if Edwards and Cheney failed to bump into each other, then whose fault is it? If both of them are down the hall from each other, then they share equal blame for not seeing each other. But if you’re trying to argue that Edwards was not present at those lunches, then say it. But I hardly think that voters care what lunches a Vice President, or a Vice Presidential candidate, have been attending.
But all this is neither here nor there, since it has been proven that the two have, in fact, met each other before, and that Edwards’ attendence for votes during the 1st and 2nd sessions of the 107th Congress were 99 percent and 100 percent, respectively. I wonder how you explain that Cheney did not meet Edwards in 2002, when his attendence for votes was perfect?
If one wants to complain about Edwards not doing the business of a Senator while he’s on the campaign trail, that’s a charge that sticks. Painting him as someone who habitually skipped out on his work is dishonest.
It’s all about effective use of one’s time. There’s always someone with a perfect attendance record, but is that person really better informed or more effective? Sometimes you have to prioritize. Anybody else ever run into the straight-A guy in college who never showed up for lectures yet always aced the tests? Edwards, Kerry, Cheney, it doesn’t matter who you question, what matters is the question. Asking such a pointed question about attendance assumes that attendance is important or desirable, when attendance may be neither important, or desirable.
I’m sure that the legislators had: 1) access to all the data presented at any meeting they missed; 2) aides who attended the meetings, who could contact the legislator if necessary (say for a vote); 3) conflicts in their schedule that made missing meetings unavoidable.
The real question is how well did they serve their constituency as a legislator. This is not easily divined from raw statistics, but critical as to expectations of their future performance.
That said, contrast Edwards and Cheney – Edwards wins, by a long shot. Cheney’s constituency was, and is, clearly Cheney. Edwards seems to actually care about humans.
Cheney’s exact quote was, “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.”
I wonder how anyone got the impression he was talking about presiding over the Senate or seeing Edwards in the capacity of fulfilling that job rather than chance meetings at lunch. :dubious:
My point in arguing this, Ravenman, was to refute those who were saying that Cheney was lying about being in the Senate a lot because he only presided over the Senate twice. I was trying to show that he was there often, and would have had a chance to bump into Edwards. As you say, if they didn’t bump into each other, they share the blame if both of them were present. My point was merely to illustrate that those who say Cheney was lying about being present in the Senate so often didn’t know what they were talking about.
As for the fact that he had met Edwards before, that’s irrefutably untrue. I don’t deny that, and as malodorous and you have pointed out, this makes much of the discussion irrelevant. I have no problem with people attacking Cheney, but these attacks should be based on facts.
And I do think that Edwards’ absences are inexcusable. The fact that he was only there 33% (10 of 30) of the time is much lower than the committee average of 70% for business meetings. And if Edwards gave his proxy to another Senator to use in 20 of 30 business meetings, then that’s an abdication of his responsiblity. A couple meetings I’d give him, but 2/3 of them? C’mon. That’s not taking your job very seriously.
Actually, this is a poor analogy. The Senate is not a class that you attend in order to pick up knowledge for a big test. It’s a job. In the days the Senate is in session, they vote on the floor, they vote in commmittee, they mark up bills. these all require someone to be there. Sure, you can miss it and not get docked your pay like you would in another job, but your state suffers and it shows a certain lack of dedication to the job.
Actually, if you get good letters back from a Senator or other such constituent service, you can thank the aides for that. Senators don’t see the letters and they don’t call the agencies on behalf of Grandma who lost he Social Security check. Constituent service should be the last qualification of whether or not someone is a good Senator. It’s the aides that do the constituent service. It’s the Senators who vote. Edwards and Kerry failed to show up to work and vote. They failed to do their job.
Your constant narrowing of the subject at hand is deliberately dishonest.
First of all, I’ve been to many, many Senate Judiciary Committee business meetings in which Chairman Hatch and Senator Leahy spend an hour or two complaining about how they don’t have enough senators for a quorum before they give up and go home. The fact is that senators have a lot of things to do and you can’t judge a senator’s record based on his attendance at any “official” meeting or event.
Second, nobody disputed the fact that Cheney goes to the Senate on Tuesdays. The whole point about Cheney’s statement is that he is intentionally making a dishonest implication about Edwards. Whether there is proof that Edwards has neglected his senatorial duties, what Cheney profferred as evidence is clearly not relevant.
Cheney was saying in no uncertain terms – “I’m at the Senate enough that if you were doing your job I would have run into you.” Now he put it in terms that are much more startling rhetorically, but his implication was clear. The fact is that Cheney does not hang out at the times and places where he’s likely to run into Edwards, and his claim about Edwards is completely irrelevant to the question of whether Edwards is a good senator. Of course, people who don’t know how the Senate works are going to think “Oh, burn, yeah, he really got him on that one,” when he did nothing of the kind.
Cheney’s statement was just as misleading and irrelevant as you say it is to go on about how Cheney presided over the Senate only twice. The fact is that none of these “statistics” mean what the speakers intended them to mean, and that is what is dishonest.
So you can’t keep saying that “Well, ignoring the misleading implication that was made, what Cheney said was literally true,” because the misleading implication is the whole point Without that implication, Cheney wouldn’t have said it the way he did.
Very good post. And furthermore, I’m going to continue to say that Cheney’s literal statement is not true. The full quote makes it clear he was talking about actually being in the Senate, not being in the area for lunch.
Actually, it’s not. If you go back and read my original post, its purpose was two-fold: point out a distinction that was missing from the debate regarding the difference of committee hearings and committee meetings and slam ignorant bloggers who mistakenly thought Cheney was lying when he said he was in the Senate a lot.
Actually, I think you can. I’ve been to many committee meetings, too. And if there aren’t enough Senators there for a quorum, that’s a sign that they are shirking their duty. Yes, Senators have a lot of things to do. However, only attending 1/3 of your committee business meetings is, as I said above, inexcusable. It’s not as if he was gone every once in a while. Edwards was gone the vast majority of the time. That’s irresponsible.
Actually, that was the whole point I was refuting. The blog that was linked to above was trying to show that Cheney was lying about this. Their “proof” was the fact that he rarely presides over the Senate. I was trying to illustrate that this is not “proof” at all, and that I know from personal experience that he was there most Tuesdays.
Actually, it is relevant. As I attempted to show, when Cheney was in the Senate every Tuesday, at a time and place when every other Senator was traditionally around (with the exception of Zell Miller – who never ate at the DPC lunches), he would have had ample opportunity to bump into Edwards.
I agree that was his implication and it’s a logically sound one, as far as I’m concerned.
Actually, he did hang out at the times and places where he’s likely to run into Edwards. If Edwards was around during that time (as he should have been – the Policy Committee lunches are designed to help plot strategy and lay out the party’s agenda for the week), then he and Cheney were eating lunch paces from each other every week for three years. Not to mention the fact that Cheney often hung around the Senate after that. So it’s a perfectly realistic scenario that Cheney would have bumped into him at one time or another.
I disagree wholeheartedly. One of the duties of a Senator is to actually show up to work and cast votes. Edwards failed to do this. Anothe duty is to show up to committee hearings and business meetings. Edwards also failed to do this. He did not represent his state well (how can you represent your state when you didn’t even show up to work) and this was clear by the fact that he was in serious danger of losing his Senate seat if he would have run for re-election.
Actually, I know how the Senate works quite well, and I thought it was a very effective burn.
Alright, so now you’re damning Edwards for not showing up to lunches that are not part of a Senator’s official duties. Do you want to knock him for not being a snappy enough dresser, too?
And you cannot exclude the possibility that Cheney simply didn’t remember running into Edwards in the halls after the lunches. We have established that Cheney did not remember sitting right next to Edwards at that prayer breakfast. I think that’s enough evidence to call into doubt whether Cheney actually remembers all of the senators who he may bump into in the halls around Congress. How can you so willingly admit that Cheney had one significant lapse of memory, but rule out that he might have had others for less memorable occasions?
And it is not as if Cheney has a good memory for anything that is politically disadventageous to him.
One thing I would be curious to see – which I’ve been unable to track down – is Edwards’ attendance record on the Labor Committee. I wonder why the Republicans have only attacked Edwards on his Judiciary post?
By the way, what’s your view on George Bush’s abscence from the Governor’s office in Texas in 1999 and 2000? Or his record number of “working vacation” days as President?
I think if any politician is running for another office, and if that campaigning gets in the way of his current duties, then he should resign from office. I’m not sure if Bush’s absences got in the way of his official duties, since he has a Lt. Governor to fill in for him (while Kerry and Edwards did not have surrogates there to vote for them), but I think he probably should have resigned, especially in 2000.
As for his so-called “vacations,” we both know that Presidents don’t take actual vacations like you or I would do. Bush was still working as President, making calls, receiving briefings, making decisions, etc., in Crawford. I’ve got no problem with that.
The basic fact of the matter is that Cheney does not routinely make himself accessible to Democratic senators, regardless of the proximity of the two policy lunches. Unfortunately there’s no way to compile a list of all the face-to-face meetings between Cheney and Democrats (any Democrat) on those Tuesdays, but it would be, as they say, a “slim volume.”
How about the simpler explaination that Cheney was lying through his teeth when he made that smartass remark? It’s not as if the guy doesn’t have a track record for flagrant prevarication…
I have a couple of comments and a question. The first comment is that a few of the posters here need to read Cheney’s full comment in context, as you can do here:
The question: I’ve been digging around in the .gov domain, searching for attendance records, both on the Senate floor and in committees. I can’t find them anywhere. I’m not going to accept unverified newspaper accounts or a Senator talking about himself or his opponent. Is there a definitive source for this information?
And one last comment: I did some digging about the “Senator Gone” reference on Edwards, and found over a hundred sites quoting this:
In fact, I found that quote darned near everywhere except on The Pilot’s own Web site. When the Vice President of the United States mentions a small-town three-issues-a-week newspaper, wouldn’t you expect them to say something about it prominently on their own site?
And, finally, my own feelings on the attendance issue: I think it’s despicable how we hire politicians to perform a job for us and they spend half their term campaigning and fund-raising. How can we fix it? Maybe we should just say you can’t run for an office while you hold one. Presidents could still serve two terms, just not consecutively. You want to run for President while you’re a Senator or Governor? Be serious. Quit the other job, since you’re not going to be there enough to perform it. I know. There are lots of drawbacks to that system, but at least they wouldn’t be campaigning and fundraising while they’re supposed to be working for us.