In My Time - Dick Cheney [149]
About two-thirds of the way into the debate, Bernie brought up the matter of the partisan bickering in Washington. “How would you elevate the political discourse and purpose?” he asked. I talked about George Bush’s record of bipartisanship in Texas, and Joe talked about Al Gore’s record of bipartisanship in Washington. And then we had one of those unplanned, unscripted, and totally memorable moments that can happen in high-stakes debating. In response to my charge that the Clinton-Gore team hadn’t done anything, bipartisan or otherwise, to fix Medicare or Social Security or to improve the nation’s schools, Joe laid out all the ways in which the country was better off than it had been eight years earlier. Then he turned to me and said, referring to the extensive news coverage of my most recent financial disclosure forms, “And I’m pleased to see, Dick, from the newspapers, that you’re better off than you were eight years ago, too.” It was a good line greeted by laughter from the audience. And it gave me the chance to respond by saying, “And I can tell you, Joe, that the government had absolutely nothing to do with it,” which drew even more applause and laughter.
If the exchange had ended there it probably would have been pretty much a draw, with each of us scoring a good-natured shot at the other guy’s expense. But then, as Bernie got ready to ask his next question, Joe pointed to his wife, Hadassah, in the audience and said, “I can see my wife, and I think she’s thinking, ‘Gee, I wish he would go out into the private sector.’” It was an opening I couldn’t pass up. “Well, I’m going to try to help you do that, Joe.” It was completely spontaneous, and it caught Joe off guard. He was experienced enough to know he’d blown it by giving me such a great opening.
Bernie’s questions that night covered the political waterfront, including the issue of sexual orientation. He asked, “Should a male who loves a male and a female who loves a female have all the constitutional rights enjoyed by every American citizen?” I had given the issue a lot of thought and answered it from the heart:
The fact of the matter is, we live in a free society and freedom means freedom for everybody. We don’t get to choose, and shouldn’t be able to choose, and say, you get to live free but you don’t. That means that people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into. It’s really no one’s business in terms of trying to regulate or prohibit behavior in that regard. The next step, then, of course, is the question you ask of whether or not there ought to be some kind of official sanction, if you will, of the relationship, or if these relationships should be treated the same way a conventional marriage is. That’s a tougher problem. That’s not a slam dunk. I think the fact of the matter, of course, is that matter is regulated by the states. I think the different states are likely to come to different conclusions and that’s appropriate. I don’t think there should necessarily be federal policy in this area.
I concluded by saying, “I think we ought to do everything we can to tolerate and accommodate whatever kind of relationships people want to enter into.” Of course, I had my daughter Mary and her partner, Heather Poe, in my mind, but I was also thinking about what’s right for all of us as Americans if we truly believe in freedom.
After Joe and I gave our closing statements, we received a sustained ovation from the audience. I think