Cheney not sorry for using 'F' word to curse senator
Saturday, June 26, 2004 at 07:44 EST

WASHINGTON — U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said Friday he had no regrets about using the F word in a confrontation with a Democratic senator this week.

"I said it and I felt better after I said it," Cheney told Fox News Channel in an interview, with Congress still buzzing over the vice president's outburst.

Cheney and Senator Patrick Leahy clashed as lawmakers gathered for an annual photographic session in the Senate chamber, Leahy's spokesman said Thursday. Cheney's position as vice president makes him president of the senate.

After the photo shoot, Cheney approached Leahy and protested the senator's recent criticism of Halliburton, the huge Defense Department contractor accused of profiteering in Iraq, said the senator's spokesman David Carle.

Carle said Leahy had reminded Cheney that he had once called Leahy a bad Catholic, to which Cheney responded either "F you" or "F yourself."
"That's not the kind of language I ordinarily use. I expressed my dissatisfaction with Senator Leahy," Cheney told Fox in explaining his action.

"He is the kind of individual who would make those kinds of charges and then come act as though he's your best friend and I expressed my views of his conduct and walked away."
Cheney went on: "He had challenged my integrity and I didn't like that.

"But most of all I didn't like the fact that after he'd done so that he wanted to act like everything is peaches and cream and I informed him of my view of his conduct...and like I said I felt better afterwards."

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