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Aides: Cheney utters 'F-word' in Senate
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-06-25 09:51
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney blurted out the "F word" at Democratic Sen.
Patrick Leahy of Vermont during a heated exchange on the Senate floor,
congressional aides said on Thursday.
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The U.S. Supreme
Court refused on Thursday to require Vice President Dick Cheney to
disclose the records of a 2001 energy task force he headed that endorsed
more oil and gas drilling and a revived nuclear energy program. Cheney
seen speaking at a convention in Washington in this September 2003 file
photo. [Reuters]
| The incident occurred
on Tuesday in a terse discussion between the two that touched on politics,
religion and money, with Cheney finally telling Leahy to "f--- off" or "go f---
yourself," the aides said.
"I think he was just having a bad day," Leahy was quoted as saying on CNN,
which first reported the incident. "I was kind of shocked to hear that kind of
language on the floor."
"That doesn't sound like language the vice president would use but there was
a frank exchange of views," said Cheney spokesman Kevin Kellems.
According to congressional aides, Leahy said hello to Cheney following the
taking of the Senate group photo on the floor of the chamber.
Cheney, who is president of the Senate, then ripped into Leahy for the
Democratic senator's criticism this week of alleged war profiteering in Iraq by
Halliburton, the oil services company that Cheney once ran.
Leahy and other Democrats have called for congressional hearings into whether
the vice president helped the firm win lucrative contracts in Iraq after the
U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein.
During their exchange, Leahy noted that Republicans had accused Democrats of
being anti-Catholic because they are opposed to some of U.S. President Bush's
anti-abortion judges, the aides said.
That's when Cheney unloaded with the "F-bomb," aides said.
According to Senate rules, profanity is not permitted in the chamber. But
when the exchange occurred between Leahy and Cheney, the Senate was not in
session so there was technically no foul.
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