Dear Vice President Cheney, please stop lying.

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 7:53 AM on September 13, 2006.

In business, love and kindergarten it's understood that if you lie, you are a liar. Your credibility is shot on any number of matters both related and unrelated to the lie.

This somewhat intuitive structure breaks down when it comes to our top elected officials and the media. It's one of the larger reasons why people are very very pissed off and seeking changes.

Were Cheney not the VP and Tim Russert not able to guide the information transmitted to a large audience, exchanges like the one they had on Sunday's Meet the Press would merely be comical exercises in hand grenade humor. That is: pull the pin and wait for time to make a mockery of their "reasonable" discussion.

Unfortunately, people are dying. So Jane Harman, Ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to Cheney, asking him to please quit lying. But it was more polite.

Dear Mr. Vice President:

On Sunday's "Meet the Press," you stated "we don't know" whether September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta ever met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague.

Just last Friday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report that cites multiple declassified intelligence assessments, some from as early as mid-2002, reporting evidence that the meeting did not occur. In addition, the 9/11 Commission concluded that "[t]he available evidence does not support the original Czech report" of a meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi officer.

There are also classified assessments on this topic from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, dated 20 March 2006 and 27 April 2006, respectively.

The evidence is now public and the facts undisputed that the Prague meeting never happened. There was no provable link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda prior to 9/11.

I urge you to correct your statement on "Meet the Press" and to be accurate in any future remarks.

Or: quit lying. But why the press buys anything Cheney says is beyond me. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice....er... won't get fooled again.

Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.