Much of the show consisted of down home descriptions of the homespun and honest nature of their political activities, complete with family photos and wife-praising, when Cheney was Congressman and Simpson was the Senator from their straight-shooting, "Cowboy" State of wide-open-spaces and people you can trust. . Reeking with rugged western integrity, the chiseled-faced Simpson was Will Rogers-like with his wise-cracking about how he came back to Wyoming from Washington every two years to campaign for Cheney's reelection to Congress so Cheney wouldn't run against him for Senate. Simpson asked Cheney about the crooks and outlaws that ran against him to set up Cheney's response about an opponent who advocated legalization of marijuana and won only ten percent of the vote with Cheney adding he didn't know that many people smoked the stuff in Wyoming. In a labored effort to emanate bi-partisanship Simpson queried Cheney about his love for history and asked him who were his favorite Presidents. Cheney mentioned George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman and then Simpson reminded him to add John Kennedy, and Cheney added another liberal Democrat to his list of favorites.

I am impressed and terrified by the cunningly calculating attempt by the Bush Administration to present a big time player from the global energy cartel like Dick Cheney as a good ol' boy from Wyoming who blames the price of energy on a short "supply" because of our reliance on "foreign oil". Cheney was CEO and holder of 45 million dollars worth of stock in Halliburton, Inc. for five years before becoming George W. Bush's running mate. Halliburton's most famous subsidiary is Brown and Root, a heavy construction and oil giant, that employs 20,000 people in more than 100 countries. With it's sister companies and joint ventures, Brown and Root builds offshore oil rigs, drills wells, constructs nuclear reactors and has a history of dealing directly with the U. S. military and providing cover for CIA operations. In 1998 with Cheney as CEO, Halliburton bought oil industry equipment and drilling supplier Dresser Industries for $8.1 billion. President Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, once served as managing director of the company that owned Dresser. Other Halliburton subsidiaries include NUMAR Corporation that provides nuclear magnetic resonance to measure while drilling oil and Landmark Graphics Corporation that supplies production information systems and services helping energy companies worldwide to find, produce and manage oil and gas reservoirs. Under Cheney's leadership Halliburton also enjoyed $3.8 billion in federal contracts and taxpayer insured loans.

Just after the record breaking fund raising efforts of the George W. Bush campaign, spearheaded by many businessmen with financial interests in the global energy cartel, the OPEC group announced an increase in oil prices. With Bush the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination energy prices continued to increase and by mid-year 2000 the price of energy began to take it's toll on business costs and the stock market. While the old line conventional wisdom would try to blame it all on the over-priced technology sector most market analysts agree that the economic downturn has been precipitated to a large degree by the price of energy.

The other out-dated blame game employed by energy czar Cheney is blaming short "supply" and OPEC when it's obvious that the energy cartel uses OPEC as the instrument to "drum up" the world wide price of energy so everyone can make more money. Cheney's own Halliburton-Brown and Root energy axis has more than enough connections with leaders of OPEC members to influence OPEC's pricing policies. Through OPEC the fix is on once again as the whole global energy apparatus rips us off and raises havoc with our energy dependent world. Now Cheney's energy business buddies have an excuse to get much, much richer at our expense as they have created an excuse to plunder and despoil the natural habitat of our country.

Making news from the Cheney "interview" with Simpson was Cheney's disclaimer of support of the 1997 Kyoto global warming treaty signed by President Clinton to limit industrial-nation emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Perhaps in deference to his buddies at Brown and Root who make nuclear plants, Cheney said his energy policy team would take another look at building some new nuclear generating plants that have no "adverse consequences" on global warming. The General Electric Corporation whose MSNBC-TV presented the prime time "interview" also happens to own GE Nuclear Energy whose web site says they designed and help to operate 91 boiling water reactors in 11 countries that provide about 4 % of the world's energy needs and includes a pitch for new customers world wide. There is an old saying out in Wyoming that you "get what you pay for" and the energy barons and their rich friends who raised the big bucks for George W. Bush are poised to cash in with a gigantic tax break for themselves and bigger profits for the energy business.

Tom Turnipseed, former President of the SC Trial Lawyers Association, is a plaintiff's and civil rights attorney in Columbia, SC. He was co-counsel for the Macedonia Baptist Church, an African American congregation in Clarendon County, SC which won a $37,000,000.00 (Thirty Seven Million Dollar) verdict in 1998 against the Ku Klux Klan for burning their church. A former SC State Senator, he is active in state politics and has been the democratic nominee for state Attorney General and Congress. Tom is President of the Center for Democratic Renewal (formerly the Anti-Klan Network) a nationally recognized civil rights organization based in Atlanta. In 1998, he received the Holmes-Weatherly Award, the Unitarian-Universalist Association's highest honor for the pursuit of social justice. For many years, Tom has spoken and written on political and human rights. He has hosted radio and television shows in Columbia, SC and recently appeared on PBS' American Experience in "George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire", April 23rd and 24th, 2000, MSNBC's "Equal Time" with Oliver North and Paul Begala, February 18th, 2000, C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" with Brian Lamb, January 14th, 2000 and Fox Family Network's series "Courage", September 11, 2000. His work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlanta Constitution, The Charlotte Observer and other papers.

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