So Vice President Cheney dropped the F-bomb on Senator Leahy this week. Shocking! Naturally, he went tattling like a little child to tell everyone how mean Cheney was to him.
Now granted, throwing Carlin's classic "dirty" words at someone might reasonably be considered rude, or indecorous. It's just not nice.
On the other hand, it doesn't mean much. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but all this really meant is that Cheney was angry with the senator. He suggested that the senator have sex with himself. This is obviously physical impossibile. What it really means is "I don't like you." He has not really said anything about the senator. He has not accused him of anything.
The vice president explained his behavior by reference to Senator Leahy's repeated comments claiming corruption and seeming inferences of felonious and impeachable behavior, which the vice president vigorously disputes. The senator hasn't used any of Carlin's seven magic words, but he has made grave and -at best- questionable accusations against him.
If Vice President Cheney has NOT been starting wars and fixing contracts for the purpose of benefitting the company he used to work for, then the senator (among many others) has committed far worse offense than he has. Being cussed at does not besmirch your reputation, being accused of felonious corruption does. If the senator and his Democratic colleagues can make their accusations stick in the public mind, Cheney et al could not only lose their jobs, but expect to be scorned by decent people for the rest of their natural lives.
Many liberals today like to drop extremely bad aspersions on basically anyone who substantively disagrees with them, starting with the Bush administration. It is routine rhetoric now to describe President Bush or Attorney General Ashcroft as Nazis. Also, the president — so they say — LIED again and again to the American people to trick them into a war in Iraq. That's pretty serious, far worse than simply saying that the president was mistaken in thinking there were WMDs. They are essentially accusing the president of treason.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - RJ Elliott
Good post. (For a second there, I thought this post was a response to the comments section of this post: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/06/23/005129.php)
2 - Al Barger
Well it is inspired by your post, partly - both by the abuse described for the kid in the actual post, and the comments thread. I'm trying to draw back and get a little broader picture, though.
3 - Mac Diva
Strange. There is no evidence cited in support of the unsavory allegations made in the entry. Just broad strokes of the poisoned paintbrush.
For example:
*Many liberals today like to drop extremely bad aspersions on basically anyone who substantively disagrees with them, starting with the Bush administration. It is routine rhetoric now to describe President Bush or Attorney General Ashcroft as Nazis.
*Even the most prominent left wing media figures feel free and justified in making truly wicked and conspiratorial accusations. We won't even start on Michael Moore's antics here.
Oops! What am I thinking? This entry was typed by Al Barger.
4 - Roland
Actually, does anyone know what the accusations are that Leahy was said to have made? I thought the disagreement was about the energy task force and the secrecy of said task force.
5 - Al Barger
I don't have exact quotes at hand, Roland, but the particular Leahy comments Cheney was cheesed about concerned Halliburton contracts in Iraq.
6 - boomcrashbaby
Mac Diva, we are on the same wavelength today. When I read the paragraph where Al talks about liberals accusing Bush of treason, I immediately thought of the title of Ann Coulter's book, and how, for the past year, all anti-war liberals were called traitors. Judges who uphold the Constitution are called 'activist judges' with a derogatory and subconsciously morale damaging manner, And how about a decade of all the bitching and name-calling that Clinton gets? It still hasn't stopped to this day. What about the President of the U.S. calling a reporter an asshole?
And here we have a Repubican Vice President using foul language in an insulting manner apparently, and Al's post here is a 95% condemnation of the behavior of liberals with just that one sentence...no...clause, thrown in that 'conservatives are not all clean and circumspect....' and Al, you make it seem like conservatives are afraid of speaking out for fear of being punished? What conservatives do you hang out with? They certainly can't be the ones all over the news.
Al, your views are pretty far to the Right, compared to the libertarians I know personally.
7 - jack e. jett
what bothers my is that my children, becky, bob, and ginger who are all under the age of 10, were watching c-span at the time cheney made those comments and wanted me to explain to them how one man can f*ck himself.
so now they can not watch c span, the superbowl, teletubbies, or any show that u2 and bono might accept an award.
it makes is tough for those of use who are trying to raise our children in a safe, christian, and hypocritical surroundings.
i explained to becky, bob, and ginger that some men like dick cheney are closet case homosexuals and they project their sexual fantasies on other men like patrick leahy.
the jett family
8 - RJ Elliott
"What about the President of the U.S. calling a reporter an asshole?"
Get your facts right. He wasn't President at the time.
9 - jack e. jett
rj:
that is right, the supreme court had not yet confirmed him at that point.
didn't bush say that a ny times reporter had a nice a**hold and dick cheney said it was a big one.
this type of chat of offensive to my christian children.
dick, bush, f*ucking yourself, a**holes, it is just to gay for me.
jack
jack
10 - Al Barger
Boom- Bush thought that he was speaking privately to Cheney when he made the comment about the NYT reporter, but still perhaps that was somewhat indecorous. He was not, however, being malicious, saying things to intentionally besmirch the reporter. It's just not the same thing as going in front of tv cameras and calling someone a crook.
Cheney's suggestion to Leahy that he have sex with himself was distinctly rude, perhaps somewhat inappropriate. OK, bad boy.
I KNEW Ann Coulter would come up. I LIKE her for a lot of reasons, but you should definitely take her with a grain of salt. Mostly I agree with her most of the time, but she pushes legitimate points well past their load limits at times. She paints with a broad brush.
"Treason" is an extremely grave accusation, but she will give you a reasonable definition of the word, and show carefully in what ways specific individuals seem to meet the definition. That's hardball, but she doesn't just make up stuff. She details the public statements and actions that are involved.
Her choices of terms of analytical description are harsh -- she takes no prisoners -- but she's pretty good at sticking to known facts.
She does, however, sometimes paint with too broad a brush, or get caught up in hyperbole. I can understand how some people might legitimately be offended by her from time to time. Fair enough.
On the other hand, did Ms Coulter say that "all anti-war liberals are traitors"? You may be painting with a bit too broad a brush there. She does kind of invite that, however.
I would compare her to Al Franken -- a personal hero of mine since teenage years. He plays hardball, but he mostly pretty much tries to play honest.
However, conservatives could not put up someone working like Michael Moore. The constant blatant dishonesty would just not be tolerated - nor should it be.
Screw Bill Clinton- He was and remains a total dirtbag -- I could be much harsher and more precise, but don't care to. However, in short, he pretty much deserves almost any bad thing that you could come up with to say about him.
Referring to liberal judges as "activist judges" has a known and understood meaning, and it's not just a dirty name. That's "activist judges" as opposed to, say, "strict constructionists."
That's a legitimate debate over judicial philosophy, not personal smears or false accusations. If it damages your morale to be called an "activist judge" when you make up stuff that's not in the law, then you should quit doing it. [Any Massachusetts Supreme Court justices reading this blog -- I'm looking your direction.]
As to me being to the "right" of other libertarians, I don't know quite what that even means. Relative to the Libertarian Party specifically, I would say that depending on how you want to measure it, I would probably rate at least two full standard deviations more hawkish than the average party member. I understand my beliefs to be fully consistent with libertarian principles, and consider some party members unrealistic about defense policy. Others disagree.
Other than that, though, I'm mostly a mainstream, flexible moderate libertarian. Not much else in my views would be considered particularly controversial at any Libertarian Party convention.
I won't say that conservatives are afraid of speaking out, but just that they are generally held to a considerably more rigorous standard than their opposition in public debate. Again, holding the conservatives to standards is good, I'd just like to hold those standards up all around.
11 - boomcrashbaby
Again, holding the conservatives to standards is good, I'd just like to hold those standards up all around.
Perhaps it's a matter of perspective. When I see a conservative on tv, they are always railing against a liberal. Rush, OReilly, Novak, etc. they are always speaking out on the standards of liberals, and the liberal media, holding things in check, just like liberals always speak out on the standards of conservatives. I just don't see it one-sided at all, like you do.
12 - Al Barger
Well Boom, if you see a conservative type playing loose with facts, please do call them out.
13 - boomcrashbaby
Oh gosh, Al, that's such a full-time job, entire websites like media matters, founded by former right winger David Brock, or Talk Left have formed. It takes entire staffs of people to catalog the lies of the Right.
14 - bhw
Who cares if Cheney told someone to go fuck themselves? At least he's showing some human emotion -- otherwise, he usually acts like a creepy robot.
His reaction also might reveal some level of frustration at being asked questions he doesn't want to answer. Too bad. Keep the questions coming. Make the bald man sweat.
15 - RJ Elliott
Why is "fuck" even considered a bad word anymore? It's nothing more than a catch-all.
It's like "smurf" was to the...uh...Smurfs. It means whatever you want it to mean.
16 - JR
What about the Republicans accusing Democrats of being "anti-Catholic"? News stories I've seen have brought that up as a factor in the animosity between Cheney and Leahy, yet this post seems to conveniently ignore that while trying to compare cussing to slander.
And on what authority do you accuse Leahy of "tattling"? The impression I got was that the story came from a third party, and that the press then went to Leahy and Cheney to confirm it. I could be wrong, so maybe someone can pin down who leaked the story?
What seems most relevant to this incident is that Cheney was the one who talked about raising the level of debate and civility in Washington. The story here is that he is a hypocrite.
As to Cheney acting like a robot, I would say quite the contrary - he's showing himself to be a bit of a loose cannon these days. In addition to some of his wild attacks on Kerry, Cheney was the one making some of the strongest unsubstantiated claims about Saddam's WMD capabilities. Now when he is confronted with his own words, he flatly denies saying them. Watch this guy; I think he's losing his marbles. The question is whether the administration knows. Perhaps that's why they refused to testify under oath before the 9/11 commission, for fear of Cheney perjuring himself.
Man, somebody needs to get this guy on the stand!
17 - Al Barger
The point of accusations of being anti-Catholic or of being a bad Catholic is that Democrats in the senate at this point grill all judicial appointments about their views on abortion, and apparently summarily reject any candidate who expresses any form of opposition to abortion on any level.
This is interpreted as being anti-Catholic, as this is the position of the Catholic Church. If you are a good faithful Catholic following church teachings, then you are now automatically a right-wing extremist, and ineligible for consideration to any federal bench.
You might not like or agree with that interpretation, but it is a not an entirely unreasonable one. It is NOT a fabrication or a lie, or an accusation based on damning facts not in evidence.
Flatly denying words he said comes from one cute little gotcha bit from Jon Stewart. That amounts to Cheney having forgotten using one innocuous phrase in an interview some time ago, something like "pretty well confirmed." That hardly makes him Bill Clinton.
18 - Padhraic
Direct from Hannity and Colmes about a week ago.
COLMES: Are all the American people that don't support him (President George W. Bush) dumb?
COULTER: No. I think, as I indicated in my last book, they're traitors.
19 - Al Barger
I'll take that as something of a glib joke from Ms Coulter, because obviously that is just SILLY in its over generalization if you take it literally.
Also, the words look very different on paper than what they would sound like coming from her mouth. A lot of it is the pure joy of playing pirate, and making pinkos walk the plank. And wouldn't she look CUTE in a pirate outfit?
Still, I can understand how this kind of talk can reasonably be seen to hurt her intellectual credibility.
20 - Jim Carruthers
I thought the point was that Cheney was exposed as a liar, and the best he could do was to tell the media what he's been doing to the public.
Refreshing, actually to see him glimpsed behind the curtain servicing Satan's scaly cock, and hating to be interrupted.
21 - Al Barger
I've seen no evidence suggesting that Cheney has been lying. He may perhaps have been mistaken about the extent of WMD programs before the war, but that's not at all the same thing.
The stuff with Leahy had NOTHING to do with any of that though.
22 - Jim Carruthers
When they say on "The Daily Show": Mr. VP, your pants are on fire, geez, that seems like lying. Why is the only response from the Murrican Fascist Keg Party to demand proof that they aren't making the world a worst place. What are you fuckers doing to make things better? I don't see it.
Just one, what are you evil fuckers doing to make the world a better place?
23 - boomcrashbaby
This is interpreted as being anti-Catholic, as this is the position of the Catholic Church. If you are a good faithful Catholic following church teachings, then you are now automatically a right-wing extremist, and ineligible for consideration to any federal bench.
Al, in regards to your comment 17 (shown above), while you might not be a right-wing extremist if you follow your church teachings, as you imply in that post, then you should definitely NOT be a judge! A judge is to interpret law or infractions of the law based on the law AND the Constitution, not the Pope or the Bible!!
If someone does not get put on the judicial bench because he is too right-wing, perhaps we can just make up for it and give him double communion. After all, we have a lot more now that we are much more selective about the souls we save.
24 - boomcrashbaby
Denying communion to someone who does not put your religious dogma into the law of the land is intimidation and just like the school bully who confiscates the lunch money of someone smaller.
There is a very very good and legitimate reason why judges should be grilled about their beliefs and their leanings in this, the land of the free.
25 - Jim Carruthers
Just wondering about the FCC fine?
Will this be per word? Or is it the phrase? And will being a public official count?
Since Mike FCC's father said "I don't want to say this bullshit"
-- sorry I have to take a break, but republicans in Canada have said on the radio that they don't don't want to see or respond to the movie.