I simply don't understand how anyone can defend Cheney.

One reader left a comment at Harry's Place on a post titled Where are the eloquent insults of yesteryear?.

My own response was as follows:

You don't get it, do you? It's obviously not the saying of "fuck yourself" which is the issue. It's the shallow absurdity of a man excusing himself (from what even a "forceful" Republican must see is an embarrassng faux pas) because it made him "feel better." What unintentional hilarity. His Party claims to be all about -- very explicitly -- the very opposite: duty, self-control, honor and much other cant. (Of course it's only cant if you can't and can't even admit it.) Yet Cheney's staff excuses his vulgarity because it made him "feel better." If the guy wasn't a VP I'd think he was applying for job as Vice-Chief Buffooon.

Cheney's comment came up several times this weekend at the beach and the consensus was that since our V-P has given us license to express ourselves -- especially those of us who can claim to be "forceful" persons -- it would seem to be quite healthy for anyone who choses to write to the Veep to express themselves in any manner -- even using a crude vulgarity including the "F" word. Such an expression of sentiment is, following our Vice-President, to be excused, maybe even lauded, if it makes you "feel better."

Just to make it crystal clear: the correct standard for human behavior is not that it makes you "feel better." The very idea is sickeningly adolescent. And if it were so, a whole of things which even Republicans claim to find despicable -- bestiality, for example -- would be not only legal but laudatory.

•••

I am assured that I have mis-understood the commenter. I don't think I did, but if that is so, I apologize. And of course the basic issue is not what she did or did not mean or what David Sucher did or did not misunderstand.

The obvious to me issue is that we have a buffoon of a bully as Vice President who doesn't have advisiors with presence of mind sufficient to recognize that it is not good for the country for our near-president to be (and to be seen to be as) a man who puts his own personal feelings ahead of the welfare of the nation. It made him "feel better." How stupid. How funny.

•••

Alan Sullivan also takes note of the problem of Mr. Cheney and civility. I don't think I could possibly agree with his conclusion but his is an interesting mind with which to disagree.

•••

John Massengale weighs in sensibly about Vice-President Dick Cheney & the F-Word and elevates the discussion.

Comments

[Jackie D]

Actually, I said Cheney was a hypocrite for his response. But why quibble over facts when you're annoyed at the Bush Administration? Enjoy!

[Zach]

Well put, David.

[Gabriel Syme]

I was here earlier today and now I noticed that one of the comments that was not agreeing with the attack on Jackie D is now deleted. Innnnteresting.

It seems therefore worth pointing out here again that Jackie D a) did not defend Cheney, on the contrary agreed with the general view that he is a hypocrite as indeed all politicians are, and b) her comment that "fuck yourself" is on occassion the only appropriate response, was entirely unrelated to the 'Cheney affair'.

Strange happenings on this 'esteemed' blog, I fear somebody does not "get" the blogosphere and all that interaction stuff. Never mind civility... "You don't get it, do you?"

[Perry de Havilland]

So, in fact Jackie's actual 'crime' was not that she thought 'go fuck yourself' was an appropriate response in some situations (which it manifestly is), but perhaps that she declined to participate in the statist Democrat feel-good Orwellian 'Two Minute Hate' against Dick Cheney and the statist Republicans.

As 90 percent of our spamophobe commenters do not use valid e-mail addresses, there would not be many comments on Samizdata.net if I followed your policy. I delete a few comments from Samizdata.net every few weeks (more often recently) when the posters are endlessly repetitive racists or ill-mannered jerks, but hey, to each their own editorial comment policy.

[David Sucher]

Let's put Jackie aside; if she insists I will go back and do an explication de texte and if I am wrong I will admit it. And let's put "statism" aside as well since I am sure that Libertarians can act like jack-asses as well.

The issue is public behavior. Cheney acted foolishly, but hey we have all done that. As I have said very clearly, that's not the issue. The issue is simply that his staff used an excuse for his behavior that it made him "feel better." Perry, are you defending "feeling better" as the standard of review to determine proper public behavior? For anyone, much less a Vice-President of the United States of America?

If not, then QED.

If so, then... :)

[Stephen]

I was very pleased by Cheney's rebuke of Leahy's detestable behavior---pretending to be a friend while impugning Cheney's integrity. Cursing is appropriate, can be eloquent and effective at certain times. (See Shakespeare and Patton) However, I agree with David that defending the comment on grounds it made him "feel better" is appalling. The Oprah-fication of our culture has not been purged, even though Bill Clinton is no longer Prez.

[Effra]

Cheney should have used the traditional British euphemism: Go forth and multiply.

[Scott]

"Perry, are you defending "feeling better" as the standard of review to determine proper public behavior? For anyone, much less a Vice-President of the United States of America?

If not, then QED."

The whole Iraq war was about making Perry "feel better", of course he'll accept that about an f-bomb.

[David Sucher]

Effra, but the idea of dozens and dozens of little Leahy's running about must surely have been the very furthest thing from Cheney's mind!

[John Massengale]

In today's New York Post, AEI fellow James K. Glassman opens "Desperate Dems' Extremist Turn" with these lines: "In a private conversation on the Senate floor last week, Vice President Dick Cheney hurled the 'F-word' at Sen. Patrick Leahy (D - Vt.), an intemperate critic. Cheney wouldn't repent. 'I expressed myself rather forcefully,' he said. 'Felt better after I had done it.'

You can hardly blame him.

As Iraq has moved closer to democracy over the past few weeks, the terrorist opponents of sovereignty, as expected, have grown more desperate and more violent in their counterinsurgency.

A similar pattern has occurred in America.

As Republicans have moved closer to consolidating power in all three branches of government, Democratic opponents of freemarket conservativism have grown more desperate and more rhetorically violent in their own counterinsurgency.'

End quote

[Eric Fidler]

It would be proper for the VP to volunteer to pay a fine equal to the amount levied on broadcasters who use such words on the air.