The deadpan jokes started from the get-go.
“Good morning, or maybe good afternoon,” former Vice President Dick Cheney teased in the opening of his speech on terrorism and torture, which was pushed back due to President Barack Obama’s news conference Thursday morning on the same topic.
“Clearly he was a member of the Senate and not the House, because of course, in the House we have the five-minute rule,” Cheney scoffed.
Actually, the simultaneous scheduling of speeches that took obviously different tacks dominated the talk around the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy. The former VPOTUS was even introduced by a staffer asking how interesting it was Obama “chose to schedule his remarks opposite Cheney.”
One unplanned benefit for Cheney of the president’s speech running over: It didn’t allow for Cheney to participate in the scheduled Q&A. Instead, he was out the door like a swift little ninja.
