Arianna Huffington sparred with Liz Cheney during the panel segment on This Week over whether the Bush-Cheney administration deserves part of the blame for the disaster in the Gulf with Cheney of course coming to the defense of her father and Halliburton. Rather than address Huffington's points about deregulation and the mess that the MMS had become under their watch, Cheney accused her of repeating left wing talking points and just wanting to demonize the Bush administration.
After Huffington said Halliburton was responsible for the cementing on the rig and had defrauded the U.S. government out of hundreds of millions of dollars, Cheney cut her off and said her assertions had no relationship to the truth. They both said they looked forward to PolitiFact fact checking the show.
PolitiFact's Truth-O-Meter page for This Week is here. I don't think Liz Cheney is going to fare too well there once they update the site for this panel segment.
One other note on Cheney's appearance on This Week, if she's going to be allowed to filibuster the show and talk about half the time and over the other guests, why even bother to have a moderator?
HUFFINGTON: George, the truth is that right now we have precisely the regulatory system that the Bush-Cheney Administration wanted -- full of loopholes, full of cronies and lobbysists filling the very agencies they're supposed to be overseeing --
WILL: So it's Bush's fault.
HUFFINGTON: -- the industry.
WILL: Just clear this up.
HUFFINGTON: It is absolutely 1000 percent Bush-Cheney's fault, plus the fact that the Obama Administration has not really done enough fast enough to change what's happening at the MMS agency, at all sorts of other agencies. Not just when it comes to the energy problems, when it comes to Wall Street, all over, we are seeing the complete success of the kind of regulatory system that Bush-Cheney wanted. And we're seeing this is the inevitable result of what they wanted.
CHENEY: You know, it's truly amazing. I mean I actually heard George Bush was responsible for the breakup of Tipper and Al Gore's marriage too. I mean it's incredible the extent to which people are now trying to shift blame. And frankly --
MOULITSAS: Did you fact check that?
TAPPER: We'll get that fact.
CHENEY: I heard it. I don't know. I think it was on "The Daily Kos." But at any rate, I think that, you know we got to look at what's happening going forward, and you've got to look at the facts. I mean, the left is going to try -- you guys --
HUFFINGTON: This has nothing to do with the left.
CHENEY: -- have for years been demonizing Bush and Cheney, and I'm sure you will continue to demonize them for years going forward, but we have got now a catastrophe on the Gulf Coast, a catastrophe that happened on this administration's watch which this administration is failing to clean up and be responsive and lead, frankly.
And it is a problem we're seeing with this president across the board. A president with no leadership experience.
HUFFINGTON: Right here, we have the poster child of Bush-Cheney crony capitalism. Halliburton involved in this, and we haven't said about that. They after all were responsible for cementing the well. Here's Halliburton, after it defrauded the American taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars --
CHENEY: Arianna, I don't know what planet you live on, but that's not --
HUFFINGTON: -- it's involved again. I'm living on this planet. You're living in a planet that is --
CHENEY: -- it's -- Arianna, what you're saying --
HUFFINGTON: -- continuing --
CHENEY: -- has no relationship to --
HUFFINGTON: It is completely --
CHENEY: No relationship to the effects --
HUFFINGTON: -- Halliburton was involved in this. How can you say it is not?
TAPPER: Well, Halliburton was cementing the pipe.
HUFFINGTON: How can you say Halliburton has no relationship?
CHENEY: Her assertion that Halliburton defrauded the U.S. government --
HUFFINGTON: It did. It did.
CHENEY: It was Bush-Cheney cronyism is the left talking point --
HUFFINGTON: It was -- hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraq.
CHENEY: Arianna, is absolutely not true. It is absolutely not true.
HUFFINGTON: OK, I'm so glad Politico is going to be taping this. I'm so glad.
CHENEY: Good.
