Vice President Cheney vs. The New York Times

[TexasLawyer]

Thank God we have Dick Cheney and Brit Hume to set the story straight:

Vice President Cheney vs. The New York Times

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

By Brit Hume

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Vice President Cheney's office has fired off a letter to the editor of The New York Times seeking corrections to an editorial published Sunday.

The editorial accused Cheney of ordering the destruction of visitor records for the vice presidential mansion. Cheney's office cited a letter to the Secret Service requesting that all visitor logs be maintained and preserved.

And the Times wrote that Cheney holds stock options in Halliburton that have grown by millions of dollars in value because of the Iraq war. Cheney's office cited a Times article written in 2001 that said — "Mr. Cheney also gave to charity the after-tax value of his remaining Halliburton options ... three days before Mr. Cheney was sworn in as vice president."

Cheney's office says that adds up to nearly $8 million in donations since then. So far the Times has not published Cheney's letter or made the corrections.

<snip>

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,278332,00.html

[JDPriestly]

1. If Cheney sues, he bears the burden of proving those

statements to be false. I can only imagine how much the New York Times would like to see the evidence that Cheney would have to prove to show the falsehood of the statements. Cheney is in quite a bind on this one I imagine.

The New York Times will probably issue a correction only if it believes that the statements can be disproved. This should be interesting.

[keopeli]

2. the truth behind Cheney's remarks - Cheney denies nothing

He does NOT say he preserved the visitors logs. He just provides a letter, without admitting that it may no longer be valid.

He does NOT say he has not made money off Halliburton. He simply cites a NYT article from 7 years ago that suggests he is donating his profits. Of course, that may no longer be valid either.

[GreenTea]

3. "Donations" to whom...fascist, racist organizations?

[rfranklin]

4. I suspect the charity is a trust which his family controls....

This is a typical rich folks tax dodge. They shelter the money, provide salaries for family members (as employees of the trust, and give the minimum legal amount to charity (probably Republican phoney charities.)