F*** yourself, big time

"Who wouldn't want to tell off a whiny Democrat," acknowledges Michelle Malkin in an exquisite little jewel of a one-paragraph essay that says it all about Dick Cheney's unfortunate moment of truth-telling to perhaps the whiniest of Democrats yesterday:

I'm not going to bother linking to the story. It annoys me. I am still have nightmares about the dangling heads of Nick Berg and Paul Johnson and Kim Sun-Il, and all the mainstream media will be prattling on about today is Dick Cheney's use of the F word. He shouldn't have said it. He had a bad day. He lost his cool. Many conservatives are cheering about it -- Patrick Leahy deserved it, blah x 3. But I personally don't like when public figures curse in public, whether it's Cheney or Bono or John F'n Kerry. It's fine for blogging (though the strongest you'll get from me is a damned or a hell). It's fine when you've stubbed your toe or dented the car or missed winning Powerball by 2 (or 3 or 4) numbers. Yes, it's cathartic . . . but I just don't like it when conservative public figures use the worst profanity.

For one thing, it's uncreative. There are better ways to lay into liberals. Where has the art of the insult gone?

Exactly our sentiments. While we are secretly delighted at the thought of the sanctimonious Leahy's shock, shock at being spoken to that way, we look askance at the poverty of language resources the F word's excessive use betrays, as blogged here. In the magnificent Mr. Cheney's case, of course, there's no poverty of language but a visceral, cathartic first response to stubbing one's psychological toe. We are certain he had just reached the end of his rope with the oily, smirking Leahy, BIG TIME.

Oh, and as for Michelle's challenge re the art of the insult, we were reminded of "Lawrence of Arabia" playwright Robert Bolt's memorable words put into the mouth of Anthony Quinn as Auda abu Tayi:

Your mother mated with a scorpion.

Note. We're also totally with Michelle re the use/non use of expletives on our own website, as blogged here awhile back.

Comments

[goomp]

Now if Cheney had only kept his cool and had Leahy beheaded instead of having been vulgar, we would have been far ahead in the game.

[Mark Wallace]

The biggest problem with it is not the vulgarity itself -- which has lost most of its impact by now in any case, despite what the FCC may think -- but the hypocrisy. If you're going to attack someone for using the F word in a Rolling Stone interview, the leaders of your party ought not go around using it themselves. (As we point out in http://gulfreporter.blogs.com/gulfreporter/2004/06/a_vulgar_direct.html and rather shamelessly link to here.)

[Sissy Willis]

You think so, Wallace? I don't recall attacking anyone "for using the F word in a Rolling Stone interview." The link from your own post does quote Brookings Institution presidential scholar Stephen Hess not attacking but critiquing Kerry's use of the word in a formal interview as "a kind of pandering to a group he sees as hip." That sounds like something Kerry would do.

Dick Cheney doesn't pander, of course. His motivation was more direct: "I expressed myself rather forcefully, felt better after I had done it," Cheney told Neil Cavuto of Fox News last night. The vice president said those who heard the putdown agreed with him. "I think that a lot of my colleagues felt that what I had said badly needed to be said, that it was long overdue." See Washington Post report here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6025-2004Jun25?language=printer

I myself see hypocrisy here, not it Cheney's language but in the Democrats' calculated shocked, shocked reaction, as they once again pander to the "perceived significance of voters' impatience with the partisan squabbling in Washington." The VP's outrage is refreshingly authentic. Daschle and Company's outrage, patently phony.

[Mark Wallace]

apols, Sissy. Definitely wasn't referring to any attacks you'd made. And yes, I doubt Cheney was pandering to anyone just at that moment. Pandering, however, is pretty universal among politicians, I think you'd agree. (I think.)

[Sissy Willis]

apols accepted, W. And yes, pretty universal among politicians, but the likes of Cheney and Rumsfeld, for example, strike me as authentic oner types who aren't afraid to call a spade a spade. Cheers.