Cheney, Rumsfeld Cheered Amid Boos At CPAC
Former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at CPAC, Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011. Alex Brandon/ASSOCIATED PRESS hide caption
Former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at CPAC, Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011.
Alex Brandon/ASSOCIATED PRESSAn eyebrow-raising, unscripted moment at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this afternoon in Washingtion.
It involved former Vice President Dick Cheney who wasn't on the official schedule showing up to introduce his old friend and fellow Bush Administration official Donald Rumsfeld, the former Defense Secretary. There was booing.
An NPR colleague attending CPAC reported in an e-mail:
Cheney, for what it's worth, was cheered AND booed. I heard cries of both "Cheney for President!" and "murderous scum!" And one person yelling "liberator!" (I could not tell if that was intended as irony.) Every time someone starts heckling/booing, part of the crowd starts changing "USA! USA! USA!"
Updated at 6:16 pm — My colleague tells me that, in fairness, it was hard to discern from the vantage point of reporters in the press area if the booing was directed at the former Bush administration officials or at the hecklers.