Leahy brushes off Cheney's 'best thing I ever did' comment

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) was uncharacteristically speechless when ITK asked if he had a response to former Vice President Dick Cheney's recent comment that telling Leahy to "go f**k yourself" in 2004 was "kind of the best thing I ever did."

Given the chance to respond to Cheney's April 22 remark on Dennis Miller's radio show, Leahy paused at the ornate front doors to the Senate chamber, sighed, and waved his hand away in a shoo-ing motion. The 35-year senator took a few more steps, paused and swiveled to return, but waved his hand again in a dismissive motion and entered the chamber beyond a point where reporters are allowed.

The Leahy-Cheney incident grabbed headlines in 2004, during a "class photo" event in the Senate, when Cheney made the remark to a surprised Leahy in return for Leahy's criticism at the time of oil firm Halliburton's activities in Iraq. Cheney is a former Halliburton top executive.

Leahy showed a sense of humor about the incident in 2007, telling one senator who was about to be sworn in to office by Cheney that "it's always better to be sworn in than to be sworn at."