Big kerfluffle today over Dick Cheney using a naughty word in the Senate chambers.
Vice President Dick Cheney blurted out the “F word” at Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont during a heated exchange on the Senate floor, congressional aides said on Thursday.
The incident occurred on Tuesday in a terse discussion between the two that touched on politics, religion and money, with Cheney finally telling Leahy to “f— off” or “go f— yourself,” the aides said.
“I think he was just having a bad day,” Leahy was quoted as saying on CNN, which first reported the incident. “I was kind of shocked to hear that kind of language on the floor.”
Yeah. Shocked. Nobody in the Senate ever swears.
According to Senate rules, profanity is not permitted while the chamber is in session. But when the exchange occurred between Leahy and Cheney, the Senate was not in session so there was technically no foul.
So this wasn’t while the Senate was debating a bill, or someone was making a speech, or business was going on. Cheney and Leahy bumped ran into each other, got into a discussion that got heated, and Cheney lost his temper.
According to congressional aides, Leahy said hello to Cheney following the taking of the Senate group photo on the floor of the chamber.
Cheney, who is president of the Senate, then ripped into Leahy for the Democratic senator’s criticism this week of alleged war profiteering in Iraq by Halliburton, the oil services company that Cheney once ran.
[…] During their exchange, Leahy noted that Republicans had accused Democrats of being anti-Catholic because they are opposed to some of President Bush’s anti-abortion judges, the aides said.
That’s when Cheney unloaded with the “F-bomb,” aides said.
First off, I’m no great fan of Dick Cheney. I don’t think he’s the Evil Overlord that some folk say he is, but he’s certainly not what anyone would say is personable. I consider the whole Halliburton thing to be wildly overblown, but Cheney’s penchant for secrecy and testiness hasn’t made the situation any better.
That said, yeesh. I mean, a heated exchange, outside of formal business, that gets gossipped about by Senate aides, is hardly the cardinal sin some seem to be making of it. I mean, it’s not like he used the word during a formal interview for publication or something.
Is it a violation of the Squeaky-Clean, Holier-Than-Thou, Christian Right image that the White House both presents and is tarred with? Maybe so, I’d be curious as to whether there are any woodshed moments that come from it. But while there’s some irony in the poking of the piety from the Administration, there’s also some irony that some on the Left are as righteously torqued over this crudity and dishonorable behavior as those on the Right were over Kerry’s bon mot.
(via Les)
Torqued? Only because it’s okay when they do it, but not when we do.
WorldDailyNet…David Limbaugh…AAAAA!
Ok, Better now.
Um, From what I see it’s that it’s a “lets see what the right does after the whole Kerry interview” Kerfuffle. Will the right wing pundits that got their knickers in a twist over that, going to give a pass to Cheney (again, since the first time was the “Yeah, he’s a real asshole” open mic event) for this, or are they going to be “Fair and Balanced” in their Punditry.
But since the Mighty Wurlitzer of the Right seems to be either quite about this, or congratulating Cheney’s ability to tell the traitorous Dems what all “real ‘Muricans” have been thinking (yessss, I listened to 15 minutes of Rush at lunch, and expect to here the same from Hewett and Beck this afternoon), I don’t see anything to come of this.
IOKIYAR
(It’s Okay If You’re A Republican!)
P.S. If you going to campaign as the “party of Honor and Morals” and are going to return same to the Whitehouse, you’d better have those qualities.
And vice versa, Scott. It’s a circular argument, you see.
[Well, that’ll larn me to post a comment with a, um, naught word when I have MT-Blacklist lurking in the background. Let’s recreate this thang.]
I agree fully that those who who got their noses pushed out of joint by Kerry’s comment ought to be similarly irked with Cheney. And, similarly, those who game Kerry a pass because he was just “being honest and righteously busting chops” should accept Cheney’s outburst as just more of the same.
One could argue that Kerry’s statement was intentional, in the relative calm and prepared setting of an interview, vs. an angry epithet intended for just the recipient and overheard by others. Whether rudeness is better than hypocrisy (if you want to apply other label) is arguable, but that doesn’t seem to be where most of the arguing is going on.
If the debate is going to be about decorum and civility, then both men are guilty, of something or another. But if it’s going to be reduced to a “Yeah, Kerry was just telling it like it was and Bush really did f-up Iraq,” or, “Yeah, Cheney was just telling it like it was and Leahy should f-off,” then the comments are no more or less than any other heated partisan rhetoric these days, and shouldn’t attract any further notice. Giving either man a pass because it’s Okay When Our Side Does It is, indeed, worthy of getting snarky over.
I believe that politicians and statesmen should have the self-control to avoid using inappropriate language. So regardless of what the pundits say about it, and regardless of what political hay is made of it, their use of inappropriate language demonstrates that neither man is someone who I want to hold high public office.
I don’t think there’s a moral issue here since our culture increasingly accepts the use of such language. I don’t think I’m a bad person because I occasionally use such language. I do regret the loss of self-control when I use it in inappropriate circumstances. I also think that almost all circumstances in which high public officials are acting in their official capacity are inappropriate for such language. I think that the lack of self-control that Cheney and Kerry have demonstrated shows that they’re not suitable candidates for high public office. Imagine the consequences if one or the other used such language when representing the United States to a foreign country.
As an aside, Bush’s frequent mangling of the english language puts him in the same category: I don’t think he’s suitable for high public office.