Hoping to change the subject away from a Republican sex scandal, Vice President Dick Cheney warned Wednesday that Democrats will weaken America if they win control of Congress next month.
“In this election season, national security is at the top of the agenda, where it belongs,” Cheney said at a GOP fundraiser. “Ladies and gentlemen, the key question before the voters on Nov. 7 is whether or not this nation is serious about fighting the war on terror.”
Democrats derided the rhetoric as “smear and fear” by Democrats, who are trying to keep focus on the scandal over whether Republican leaders in Congress should have acted more assertively against former Rep. Mark Foley. The Florida Republican resigned on Friday after disclosure of salacious e-mails he sent to boys working as congressional pages.
“Americans are tired of Vice President Cheney’s baseless partisan attacks, misleading statements and attempts to distract from the Bush administration’s failed policies,” Democratic National Committee press secretary Stacie Paxton said. “The American people are ready for a new direction that is both tough and smart.”
Cheney was also ready for a new direction. Instead of mentioning the controversy, he criticized Democrats for voting against renewing the Patriot Act and opposing the terrorist surveillance program, which taps international phone calls of suspected terrorists.
“If people inside the United States are communicating with al-Qaida, they are talking to the enemy, and we need to know about it,” he said. “Yet many leading Democrats have denounced the president for this program. And last week, when a bill to authorize it came to the House floor, 177 Democrats voted no.”
Cheney also mentioned Democratic votes against a CIA program to detain and question suspected terrorists and an effort to create military commissions that would try terrorists such as Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
“It appears their preference is no detention program and no military commissions,” he said. “The Democrats are trying to have it both ways: They complain that we’ve been holding terrorists without bringing them to trial. And then they vote against military commissions to bring them to trial.”
Cheney also warned that Democrats would implement “an immense tax increase.” He pointed out that Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., recently said he “cannot think of one” tax cut from President Bush’s first term that should be extended.
“The elections on November 7th will have enormous consequences for this nation, one way or the other,” he said. “In all the decisions that will come in the next two years, it’s going to matter a great deal which party has the majority on the floor and the gavel in committee.
“And I don’t need to tell you what kind of legislation would come to us by way of committee chairmen like Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, John Conyers, Henry Waxman, Barney Frank or Jay Rockefeller.”
