Cheney vs. Reality

The upshot of Dick Cheney's evidentiary presentation in the VP debate is that since it was fact-based, it is straightforwardly supported or belied by data. Isikoff and Hosenball explain why, if Dick Cheney's lips were moving, he was probably lying.

[OTOH, our political culture is so poisoned---and few people have done so much to poison it as George Bush and Dick Cheney---that lies repeatedly frequently enough just get absorbed into the culture, and somehow, eventually, attain a status as true. The SCLM are complicit in this: any time Dick Cheney lies, for example, CNN will report "Dick Cheney claims x, Democrats say ~x," where x=Dick Cheney never suggested that there was an operational relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.--ed.]