[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5461]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      UMBRAGE TAKEN AT COMMENTS REGARDING DEMISE OF VICE PRESIDENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Holt). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I was watching television last 
night, I think it was the O'Reilly Show, I am not sure exactly, but I 
believe it was the Bill O'Reilly Show on Fox Network, and they had an 
excerpt of another show from which were taken some remarks by a well-
known comedian and political advocate in which he was inferring that 
the country would be better off if the Vice President of the United 
States died. I took great umbrage at that. I was very, very upset about 
that, because Vice President Cheney has been an outstanding servant of 
this country for a long, long time.
  I had the pleasure of serving with Vice President Cheney when he 
served in this body as the Republican whip. He worked very hard in the 
Ford administration as the chief of staff. I don't know that anybody 
has ever really been able to question his integrity, because he is a 
man of integrity, and he has been trying his best to assist the 
President of the United States in dealing with some very, very 
troubling issues, not the least of which are the war against terror and 
the war in Iraq.
  Mr. Speaker, I won't mention the comedian, the political pundit, who 
made the remarks on television on HBO just recently, but I will just 
say that I think it is very, very bad taste for anyone to infer, even 
infer, that the Vice President of the United States, Mr. Cheney, who 
has done such an outstanding job for this country over a long period of 
time, should be better off dead. That was the inference that was made. 
I think it was wrong, and I hope that doesn't happen in the future.
  I may take issue with political leaders on the other side of the 
aisle, and I may very much in very severe ways disagree with them, but 
in no way would I ever indicate that they should be better off under 
the ground than on top of the ground, even though we have severe 
differences. And for anyone to infer that the Vice President should die 
really, really bothers me, especially in this time we are in, these 
very troubling times.
  Vice President Cheney is a great man. He has done an outstanding job 
for this country and he should be respected, even if you disagree with 
him.

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