Soccer Dad

Benefit of the doubt for the UN, not the US

Dov Bear is doubly incensed. He's incensed that VP Cheney wore a parka to the Auschwitz ceremony. He's further incensed that Jewish supporters of the current adminstration aren't.
Here's his response to Israelly Cool's defense of the VP:

Also, Cheny was at the inauguration earlier that week -where it was absolutely frigid - dressed quite approiately and respectfully. Are you telling me that a man as wealthy as Chenny couldn't find a tailor who could put him in something warm that was also dignified? Please. This business about him "just wanting to be warm" is laughable. You can be warm and look proper at the same time.

Anyway, Dave, Chenny isn't the only leader to have toured Aushwitz, and you and I both know he could have dressed warmly without also looking like a fool.

Of course there's a reasonable question as to why the Vice President dressed differently from everyone else. Dave (at Israelly Cool) had observed:

It should be noted that Cheney did not merely show up for the ceremony, but actually toured Auschwitz. Perhaps that is why he wanted the warmer clothing. Or perhaps because he has been suffering from well-publicized health problems.

Dov Bear never addressed these issues.
Someone touring Auschwitz for 90 minutes would dress differently from the way someone attending a shorter ceremony might.
Though I haven't found anything conclusive I've found that people with heart problems often take blood thinners that make them feel colder than the rest of us. I've also found some that some people with pacemakers have trouble breathing when cold. In both these cases, what I've found hasn't been overwhelming, but still, something to consider.
The biggest question is that if the cold bothered Cheney, why didn't he dress warmly instead of formally at the inauguration?
Of course the inauguration was first. What if he decided to brave it at the inauguration and then discovered it put him at risk? Additionally, Auschwitz was 10 - 15 degrees colder than Washington was on inauguration day. The intensity of the cold could make a difference.
Of course there's a bigger question here. Who was outraged? Robin Givhan, fashion critic of the Washington Post was. Guess what else? Every article that mentioned "outrage" over VP Cheney's attire referenced the Givhan article. In other words, the offense of a single fashion critic became the general outrage that all of sudden became news. (Search Yahoo! News for "Cheney and Parka.")
Givhan's criticism was disrespectful and over the top. It also was written from this side of the Atlantic. And it was the source of all the outrage. Several news stories noted Cheney's style of dress but none criticized it until Givhan's screed.
Finally the American delegation included not only VP Cheney, but also the only Holocaust survivor serving in Congress, Rep. Tom Lantos. Rep. Lantos has not been quoted anywhere criticizing the Vice President.
This "scandal" has been manufactured by the MSM. The outrage did not originate in Poland but at the Washington Post. And it spread through the echo chamber of the liberal media eager to score a few points against the Vice President.
Dov Bear also accuses Clifford May of "lying." May at one point referred to Jan Egeland, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and accused him of "deriding Americans as 'stingy...'" And Dov Bear contends that since Egeland's statements never specifially mentioned the United States May was lying.
I fell for the bait and attempted to show that Egeland really did accuse America of being stingy. I have not found that yet. But what is true, is that America is part of the "donor community" and if Egeland was calling the donor community "stingy" he was calling all of its members stingy. This is simple logic. (May was making the point that Egeland was hypocritical because Egeland refused a contribution from Taiwan lest it offend China.)
I did, though, go searching through the UN's website to find the original transcript of Egeland's remarks and it is nowhere to be found. There is a summary from that day's (12/27/04) press briefing but not the complete remarks. And of course there were subsequent items where Egeland claims to have been misunderstood (here and here.) The degree to which Egeland protests the way his remarks were understood suggests that there was reason to believe that he had directed them against the United States. But that proves nothing. Of course I trust UN officials (with good reason) less than Dov Bear trusts Clifford May.
Did Jan Egeland single out the United States? Apparently not. Did he criticize the United States as part of the donor community. Definitely.
Finally I owe Dov Bear an apology for being suspicious of his kind words about my blog. Since he'd been so snarky about Jewish Republicans (and/or conservatives) I assumed his words were meant condescendingly. He wrote that he meant them.
Finally, Dov Bear, don't think that we Jewish conservatives came to our positions without thinking. We've thought a lot about the issues. We clearly see things differently from the way you do. But that doesn't make us knee jerkers. Give us at least a little credit for having thought though our positions.

Posted by SoccerDad at February 1, 2005 06:43 AM | TrackBack