From a reader:
Jonah,
In response to the emailer who said you can’t have it both ways.
I would say you can. The difference is that the Vice-President said F-U to Senator Leahy because of what he considered to be unfair attacks regarding ethics and Halliburton. Not the sort of rebuttal I would use, but hey, explitives are a part of the English language…. even though I think they show a complete lack of expressive imagination.
Senator Kerry on the other hand, called a Secret Service agent an SOB for causing him to fall off his snowboard. Smart move from someone who wants to be President, don’t you think? You would think that the Secret Service agent in question might have second thoughts if, God forbid, bullets started flying in the general direction of the Senator.
Anyhow, neither instance was much news to me, but I would say that if an FU or SOB comments was merited, I think if someone were questioning my ethics, I would have added a finger.
And..
The e-mail that you excerpted in the Corner is comparing apples to oranges. Cheney said something that perhaps he shouldn’t have, but he did it in the heat of a personal confrontation, and he said what he said to the person he was having a conflict with. If memory serves, Kerry said what he said after having time to collect his thoughts, and he did so knowing that he was speaking to reporters.