I Agree With Dick Cheney, Kicking Off The Rapture
Your periodic dose of granola politics, where I come out of my Jesus-loving, immigrant-hating, war-mongering closet.
From The Huffington Post:
BLITZER: You know, we're out of time, but a couple of issues I want to raise with you: your daughter, Mary. She's pregnant. All of us are happy she's going to have a baby. You're going to have another grandchild. Some of the — some critics are suggesting — for example, a statement from someone representing Focus on the Family, "Mary Cheney's pregnancy raises the question of what's best for children. Just because it's possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father doesn't mean that it's best for the child." Do you want to respond to that?
CHENEY: No.
BLITZER: She's, obviously, a good daughter —
CHENEY: I'm delighted I'm about to have a sixth grandchild, Wolf. And obviously I think the world of both my daughters and all of my grandchildren. And I think, frankly, you're out of line with that question.
BLITZER: I think all of us appreciate —
CHENEY: I think you're out of line.
BLITZER: We like your daughters. Believe me, I'm very sympathetic to Liz and to Mary. I like them both. That was a question that's come up, and it's a responsible, fair question.
CHENEY: I just fundamentally disagree with you.
BLITZER: I want to congratulate you on having another grandchild.
I never in my wildest dreams (and they're pretty goddamned wild) thought I would write this particular sentence: Dick Cheney is absolutely ruh-ruh-ruh-right. It's not Wolf's business, it's not the public's business, and it sure as hell isn't Focus on the Family's business. It's not anybody's business unless Mary Cheney wants to make it their business. So…um…wow. Nice job Dick. Gold star for you.
Wouldn't it be nice if Mr. Cheney could convince the rest of his party that our personal lives are nobody's business but our own? That would be kinda cool.
January 25th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
This isn’t the first time he’s done that. Dick Cheney has always had a “screw you, I’m not saying a goddamn thing about my family” answer whenever anyone asks.
January 26th, 2007 at 12:23 am
Wait a second. Cheney is allowed not to talk about his family but he can stand behind the office of Vice President and tell us how to run ours? I don’t think so.
It’s always unfortunate when family gets dragged into it but the fact is, we need to know how he addresses the issue himself. It’s like my accountant refusing to tell me anything about his own audit. “I got it, don’t worry. Now let’s get you some more deductions.” When the White House and their conservative agenda went personal, they gave up all rights to their own personal life.
January 26th, 2007 at 5:18 am
Clearly Ken subscribes to the saying, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!”
Do all elected officials lose their rights to family privacy because we elect them to help us run our lives?
January 26th, 2007 at 5:31 am
Ideally, he should be a good example for everyone, isn’t it?
I agree that this is a personal question and he has got all the right to keep his thoughts to himself, but I believe that it could be a good opportunity to show everyone how tolerant and open minded he is, objective that he could have achieved with a few well prepared declarations. This could help other people to start moving towards that state of mind.
I am not criticizing him for not taking that opportunity, only remarking that maybe he could have made the most out of that situation in benefit of the population, even if that would mean sacrificing a small part of his privacy (he could prepare the answers in advance, so he could even have quite a tight control over that, I guess).
At least, this is the kind of sacrifice I would expect from any governor with truly good intentions. After all, isn’t the king supposed to be a servant of his people?
Isilion’s dream mumbling:
“…Anna… dinner… David… music… why?”
January 26th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Ken, imagine if Mary Cheney were straight, married, and having a child who, let’s say, tested for Downs Syndrome. She decides she’s going to have the child anyway, and some activist group decides she’s being irresponsible and should have an abortion. Would Wolf be out of line for legitimizing this group’s so-called concerns? Of course. It’s the same thing.
How people (and politicians) choose to live their lives is nobody’s business unless they want it to be somebody’s business. Granted, I see the irony of a VP who is indignant at answering personal questions yet supports a policy of tapping our phones and reading our mail without a court order. But we shouldn’t become the enemy we’re fighting.
A perhaps less abrasive way of answering the question would have been for Dick to have just said “you’ll need to talk to Mary about that, it’s not my place to answer.” But that’s just a little too passive for his style, I think.
Lookit me ma. I’m defending Dick Cheney.
/em points finger-gun to head
*pew*
January 26th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Stunned. Stunned I tell you. I agree with Amber. Blech!
Confused spinning feeling. Where am I? Why is that cat grinning at me, and where is his body? Help me Obi-wan, there’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.
January 26th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Unfortunately I just can’t agree. What politicians do in their personal lives is our business. And what their families do (immediate of course) are still our business in the context of the politicians.
The “accountant” analogy is pretty much spot on…but lets extend it. I work at a financial institution. As employees we are not allowed to bounce checks…go into overdraft…or have financial difficulties. Period. We are a bank. We must extend the “perception” of stability and good financial decisions. People need to trust that we can not only take care of their money, but our own. And that is a fair thing to have to live up to.
Same thing with politicians. We of course should not judge their personal lives, but we need to understand the decisions they have made, the things they believe, and we need to see proof of that.
Mary is a grown woman. She is doing something that is not in line with the Republican/Neo-conservative base…and that base deserves to know Dick’s thoughts on the subject. The country deserves to know his opinions on the subject…because his opinions and beliefs shape policy. Policy and laws that affect all of us. Period.
Sure this is about a father loving his daughter no matter how ate up he thinks she might be. I have kids…I get that…but he is a politician too and owes us his opinions. Sure…he can wrap them up in a nice cover-thine-ass way…but he doesn’t get a free pass to not say something…he is the VP of the USA, some could say the man actually running the country…but that is not a discussion for now.
Politicians loose the opportunity to have private lives when they run for office. Their lives, decisions, opinions, and feelings are one of our few windows into their thought process and how we can expect them to work when they are behind closed doors.
Of course…Wolf is a jack-ass for trying to put him on the spot, that was just lame…but Dick should have fired back with something…
cl
January 26th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Well let’s separate things first of all. Governing behind closed doors is bad. I agree that in matters of policy our governors should be transparent. For example we Americans should know who our leaders are meeting with when they formulate energy policy. On matters of a personal nature however, our politicians are people too. Even Dick Cheney. (God damn you Amber I just threw up in my mouth.)
We Americans live in a representative democracy. That means we vote for a select few people to make most decisions for us. Beyond their legal obligations they are no more bound to reveal their personal thoughts than any private citizen.
The time to look through the “windows into their thought process” is when they are running for office. We elect them based on our perceptions of them while they are running. If we don’t like what they say or do, then we vote accordingly. We knew in 2000 that Dick Cheney was a curmudgeon and unwilling to answer personal questions, yet Americans voted for him and Bush twice in a row. Unless you believe Gore won, which is way outside the bounds of this conversation. If it was important to Americans that the VP be willing to discuss his personal life and that of his family’s, then we should have made it an election issue.
If we don’t like the lack of personal insight that Cheney gives then it’s our right and responsibility not to vote for him. But there is no law requiring him to tell us what his internal thoughts are about any issue. That would be ludicrous and unenforceable. It would be like trying to subpoena a list of things that Dick Cheney prays for at night. /shiver
What I do find appalling is that the Cheney’s didn’t seem to have any problem with using their daughter to lambast John Edwards when he said “If you were to talk to Dick Cheney’s daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she’s being who she was, she’s being who she was born as.” The Cheney’s accused Edwards of dragging her into the discussion, and then themselves dragged her into their attacks on Edwards over and over and over. Cheney had no problem using his daughter then.
I have to grudgingly agree that Cheney is right in this case, but I have no illusions that he is being noble. He believes in privacy only for himself and only when it suits his political purposes. He is not unique in this political trait, but let’s not kid ourselves in thinking that he’s taking the high road because he believes in doing the right thing.
January 26th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
It was Kerry who said “If you were to talk to Dick Cheney’s daughter…” That didn’t go over well, but then neither did anything anything else Kerry said.
It is repulsive, the way Cheney’s ticket ran and won twice by projecting attitudes about gays that the candidates don’t in fact hold. A better man than Cheney, faced with the question, would find a way to answer that would help enlighten his constituents, so that such deception wouldn’t be necessary in the future. But I guess they figure they got a few more wins coming from demonizing gays, so why mess with a good thing.
January 26th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
What could he say really?
“I support her decisions.” Those of us who voted for the conservative we thought him to be would boo and hiss. Who knows what he’d do next, if he doesn’t have the values we thought he did.
“I’m ashamed of my daughter’s actions.” What a cruel thing to do to a family on public television. NO! If he has the values we thought he did, he would love her anyway and not hold her up to be a target. You don’t do that to people. He can explain to her in private what she has done and made him out to look like.
He’s a politician though, so it’s all lies and deceit anyway.
January 26th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Thank you Amber and MoxCamel, for pointing out pretty much all of the things I wanted to point out. When making a comparison, like Politicians to Accountants, you always have to strongly consider the differences between what you’re comparing. Working for as an accountant you are hired, for being a professional in the field of marketing, and the firm you work for has set up strict guidelines to govern how you act as an employee.
Politicians are elected by the people, not hired, and there is honestly no guarantee that they are professionals at politics in any way, shape, or form. We can certainly HOPE that the professionals get elected, but no one can argue that it always happens. The one similarity I listed above is that there are strict guidelines in how politicians act as representatives of the people, and seeing as we’re talking about America here not one of those rules pertains to the necessity to disclose personal material to the public all the time.
January 26th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
I have to wonder if there’s a clip out there of Cheney saying something about Clinton’s personal life…
(FWIW I agree with Cheney in this case. But I would be hard pressed to believe that he’s not a big hypocrite on this one.)
January 26th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
It’s the same thing? Seriously, what kind of brain damage do you have to believe that?
The key here, as you mention, I have to imagine that activist group. What I don’t have to imagine is an entire political party that spends much of it’s time making sure homosexuals aren’t able to have children or get married. And funny you bring up abortion, as the rest of their time is spent making sure women can’t make their own medical decisions.
Reality and your fantasy world are not the same thing. Republicans, including Dick and Mary Cheney have made this a political issue. They don’t then get to hide behind some sort of privacy right, especially one they don’t believe in, when reality becomes inconvienent for them.
January 28th, 2007 at 2:15 am
It really shouldn’t be much of a shock that you agree with a politician that you would never vote for. Nobody in this world is that evil in truth. Struggling to create reasons to not admire Cheney’s response to this is an exercise in attempting to justify hate.
I can’t say I enjoy what the current administration is doing for our country, but I don’t hate any of them. Nor do I hate Clinton, who I also didn’t enjoy in office. In truth, if a candidate makes you hate, the answer is in a mirror. Get involved and help better candidates win.
February 14th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
I agree. As Jon Stewart put it, Cheney was essentially saying “How dare you? How dare you apply my party’s cruel and inhumane family policies to my own family?”