How Cheney Shows His Respect
Cheney looks nice in his green parka, doesn't he? Did he forget to bring any black coats with him? Does he just not care? Or perhaps he's going to play paintball later?
Jeesh.
posted by mooglar @ 11:00 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
As a general rule, I seldom disagree with the underlying spirit of your posts; however, I find myself in the awkward, and extremely unusual, position of offering a small defense of our Vice President. Perhaps I will have to shower after this ...
I think the outcry over the parka incident is overstated. It was disrespectful, yes, but it is unreasonable to read motivation or meaning into actions when you know nothing of their context. The implication of the post to which you refer (if not the outright statement) is that Cheney's dress was a demonstration of his anti-Semitism. That's a big accusation, and a big stretch from what we see in the photograph.
Perhaps he had a cold, perhaps he thought it was colder than it really was, perhaps he is just fashion-challenged and the requisite fashion-assistant didn't make the trip with him ... I don't know, and (to be honest) I don't really care. There are a million explanations that don't necessarily imply a conscious attempt on the part of the VP broadcast to the world his contempt of the Jewish people.
If Cheney really donned the parka in an intentional effort to explicitly show disrespect at this solemn occasion then I am in complete agreement that this is a big deal, and his statement is despicable. But the truth is, we don't know why he wore what he wore -- and I'd rather accuse people with facts than suppositions.
On just the fact that he made an inappropriate decision regarding his attire, without reading motivations into that decision, I am inclined to dismiss it. There are so many grievances I have with Vice President Dick Cheney, his apparel choices hardly merit comment (to me).
I linked to that article mostly because it had the picture. I don't think Cheney is an anti-Semite. I mean, he could be, but I have no evidence that he is, so innocent until proven guilty.
I think it was just another example of the utter insensitivity Cheney, and the rest of the Bush regime, show in their dealings with other nations. If this were an isolated incident, I would be willing to give Cheney the benefit of the doubt, as you have done.
But Cheney has established a pattern of ignoring, dismissing, and disrespecting other nations and those nations' sensitive issues. As such, I see this incident as part of well-established pattern rather than an isolated incident.
In addition, it's not like he was at an event where it would be easy to make that kind of mistake. He was at freakin' Auschwitz! I'm sure Cheney knows not to wear a green parka to a funeral. Why would he think it was okay to wear a green parka with white fur to the grave of over a million people?
As far as the cold goes, for one thing, everyone else in the picture managed to find a warm, BLACK, non-furry hooded coat to wear. The VP of the US couldn't do that? And, for another thing, it was colder at the Inaguration, and Cheney didn't wear a big green parka do that.
I don't know that Cheney intended to disrespect the dead at Auschwitz. But if he didn't, the casual disrespect he showed is, in some ways, worse. Because that shows that Cheney thinks so little of even our allies that he didn't take even a moment to consider whether wearing a green parka to Auschwitz was appropriate. Or that he is so ignorant of history as to not understand what happened there, which is scary in someone who is a heartbeat from leading the most powerful nation in the world.
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