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February 15, 2006
Eugene Jarecki: Why We Laugh or Cry
At Huffington Post, Why We Fight filmmaker Eugene Jarecki muses on the reaction to the news that Vice President Cheney shot a man in the face: "Dick Cheney’s America is a place so cutthroat that a 78-year old man gets shot by his own friend and the dominant response across the country is laughter... What is it about Dick Cheney that brings out the worst in us?
Is it his secrecy? — the secrecy that mocks the openness we all idealize as being the core of our democracy? Are we so tired of watching Mr. Cheney obstruct access to information about his activities that reading the Texas Parks and Wildlife Hunting Accident and Incident Report online gives us all a brief holiday in our hearts? Is it his arrogance? — the sense that he is above the law — that makes us relish the sheepish sight of him being interrogated by a park ranger? ... What frightens me is that when one of Mr. Cheney’s shotgun pellets slipped into Mr. Whittington’s heart tonight and Mr. Whittington himself slipped into cardiac arrest, I find even Mr. Cheney’s allies at the DrudgeReport rubbing their hands in ghoulish expectation. With a headline that reads CHENEY FACES GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION IF MAN DIES, I fear that too few prayers going out around the country tonight are directed at the vulnerability of Mr. Whittington’s life and too many at the vulnerability his death might bring to an overly-powerful Executive Branch. As for me, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry."
Posted by pride at February 15, 2006 11:30 AM
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