I'm sick and tired of this debate. I can promise you that something similar to the following two conversations took place:

Inside Dick Cheney's head:
"You know, I'd love to help out my friends over at Halliburton, but that's a conflict of interest. Conflicts of interest are bad, just like my buddy Antonin always says."

Inside Halliburton:
"You know, our ex-CEO is vice president of the United States. Vice fucking president. I wish there was some way we could use that to our advantage over in Iraq. You know, at least put in a phone call or something to help grease the wheels. But no, we couldn't do that. That's wrong."

This is such a non-issue. After all, there'd be nothing in it for Cheney since he covered his ass bases by donating his options to charity (or whatever the fuck a charitable trust is and whoever the recipient is). I mean, if he's not making money off it, there couldn't be any other benefits, right? Meanwhile, Halliburton wouldn't risk doing something like this just to make a buck; getting some kind of edge to beat out the competition and make money isn't what business is about. Furthermore, it's ridiculous that someone like Dick Cheney or a company like Halliburton would do something so wreckless because it'd be obvious to everyone what was going on. After all, Dick Cheney doesn't think the American people are stupid, and we aren't stupid.