Free Republic

On a Sunday afternoon not long after he was elected vice president, Joe Biden recalls, he learned a lesson about his new station in life. Biden was finishing up a call with his new chief of staff, Ron Klain, when he dropped the news that his friend Ted Kaufman would be filling his Senate seat. “Did you tell the president?” asked Klain, who, as an aide to Al Gore, had learned something about vice presidents and their place. “Why the hell should I tell the president?” Biden remembers thinking. After all, for 36 years, Biden had been his own man,...

Using unusually intemperate rhetoric even for a Democrat, firebrand Congresswoman Maxine Waters is blasting President Bush and Vice President Cheney over their conduct of the Iraq war, calling Bush "a liar" and Cheney "a thief." After attending a mock impeachment hearing two weeks ago staged by House Democrats, Rep. Waters told cheering onlookers, "Finally Congress has come alive and decided to take on this president in a real way." "The president is a liar," she continued. "Dick Cheney, the chief architect of the Big Lie, is not only a liar, he is a thief." She accused Cheney of helping his...