Questions for the VPs

by Radley Balko

Published on July 15, 2004 By CS Guy In Politics

Radley Balko has an interesting article posing some thoughtful questions to VP Cheney and potential-VP Edwards. Here are a couple of my favorites.

For Sen. John Edwards, Democratic nominee for vice president:

—You said in a campaign speech that we have “One America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks,” and that in your administration, we’d have “no more tax breaks for CEOs who give themselves millions in top-hat pensions while giving no pensions at all to ordinary workers.” Yet, two years before you were elected to the Senate, you established a tax shelter to avoid paying $290,000 in Medicare taxes. Medicare is federally-funded healthcare for the poor. How do you explain your shirking of this duty to the poor you claim other wealthy people should observe?

—You’ve said that Miguel Estrada, the man President Bush nominated for the D.C. District Court of Appeals, was an unqualified candidate who merely “had the right last name.” Estrada has argued 15 cases before the Supreme Court. He edited the Harvard Law Review, worked with Solicitors General from both parties, and received the highest possible rating from the American Bar Association. Do you believe that blacks and Hispanics with conservative beliefs are inherently unqualified for judicial positions? Can't a black or Hispanic disagree with Democratic Party principles and still retain his/her racial or ethnic bona fides?

For Vice President Cheney:

—In 1991, you gave a speech in which you said the first President Bush was correct to leave Saddam Hussein in power, given the ethnic tensions in Iraq. In fact you said it would be nearly impossible to impose a democracy there, and that “it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq.” Granted, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks changed the way we look at the world, but what has changed in Iraq in the last 13 years that now makes you optimistic we can build a liberal society there?

—During your 2000 vice presidential debate with Joe Lieberman, you stated that you felt gay marriage was a matter best left up to the states. You’ve now publicly supported the Federal Marriage Amendment, a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. What has caused you to abandon the principles of federalism as they apply to this issue?

Comments

Angloesque

on Jul 15, 2004

I have another one for Edwards:

How does suing doctors and winning huge amounts of damages, ergo raising health care costs even more, heal anyone?

CS Guy

on Jul 15, 2004

How does suing doctors and winning huge amounts of damages, ergo raising health care costs even more, heal anyone?

Balko actually had a couple questions concerning that. And I agree that it is something Edwards should address.

Angloesque

on Jul 16, 2004

I should've read the link first. Thanks for it.

kingbee

on Jul 16, 2004

for edwards: do you and mallory still hang out?

for cheney: how many times can one view a standard commercial video recording of 'dr strangelove' before it begins to disintegrate?

CS Guy

on Jul 17, 2004

for cheney: how many times can one view a standard commercial video recording of 'dr strangelove' before it begins to disintegrate?

Now I'm gonna have this image in my head of Cheney grinning in the war room and George riding a bomb.

kingbee

on Jul 17, 2004

Cheney grinning in the war room

exactly the vision which inspired that question. way too insightful on your part.

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