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July 17, 2005

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You seem to be implicitly linking their behavior with moral relativism, but it seems to me it would be better called amorality. That is, you are rewarded if you go along with the administration and punished if you don't, and morals don't enter the picture.

It is fun to turn the dreaded "moral relativism" term back on them, though. :)

Uh-oh. She got me started.

Dianne Hackborn is absolutely correct about the Bush administration's amorality. An extremely trivial incident that took place a year or so ago--I'm surprised it wasn't pursued more by the media--convinced me of this. Some Republican senator was going against the party line on some issue. Cheney used some impermissible word when rebuking the senator. (I told you this was trivial, but stay with me.) Cheney was asked about this, and his reply was to smile and say "I enjoyed it" or "It felt good" or the like.

Now, using this word seems to have been something Cheney either considered wrong or thought that others would consider wrong. Other politicians, when caught doing something wrong, make denials, or excuses, or quibbles about whether the rule applies in their case, or apologies. Any or all of these may be lies, but at least they're paying lip service to the idea of right and wrong and admitting that at least in theory it applies to them. As far as I know, only Cheney has publicly used the pleasure principle as justification.

And Bush's reaction to Cheney's utterance? "Stuff happens" (this one I remember verbatim). *_Stuff happens_*? Well I'll be forked. "Stuff happens," or some shit like that, is what people say when something bad has happened to them--when they're pawns of forces beyond their control--or when they want to act like that's the case.

Trivial, as I said. But it speaks many volumes about their attitude toward morality.

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