What You Mean We, Dick?

Former Vice President Dick Cheney can’t seem to get out of the verbal rut that he is in. He seems to have become like the proverbial scratched record where the needle used to backtrace to the previous record groove and he keeps repeating himself over and over and over again.

Today I realized something that Cheney doesn’t.

He thinks he is we.

Here is what he said yesterday to conservative radio commentator Scott Hennen over Obama’s deep bow to Emperor Hirohito of Japan last week [that’s right, Last Week!]:

“When the President bows to a foreign leader, our friends and allies don't expect it and our adversaries perceive it as a sign of weakness. I think it's fundamentally harmful and it shows in my mind that this is a guy, a president, who would bow, for example, who doesn't fully understand or have the same perception of the U.S. role in the world that I think most Americans have. What I see in President Obama is somebody who bows before foreign leaders and spends his trips aboard primarily apologizing for U.S. behavior. I find that very upsetting.”

Whose behavior do you think Dick Cheney is referring to? Whose behavior is President Obama apologizing for according to Dick Cheney? Why, ours of course. American behavior. We are Americans. Our behavior.

Us.

We.

As Jay Silverheels as Tonto never said to The Lone Ranger when The Masked Man turned to him and admitted that “we are in a fix now, Tonto, look at all the Indians around us:”

"What you mean 'we', White Man?"

What you mean we, Dick.

American behavior, the American behavior that Barack Obama is apologizing for to anyone, everyone, who will listen, why that’s your behavior Dick.

Yours.

His.

That some Americans have taken umbrage at Obama’s bow is largely in sympathy with Cheney’s constant whine. But it is clear that their behavior is just poorly chosen in terms of their defense of the bad behavior of Cheney.

It’s all about Cheney’s behavior, not “U.S. behavior” that Obama is apologizing for.

I just love, as a result of this realization, this quote from a Western contributor to The Japan Times:

“Regarding the Nov. 18 article "U.S. conservatives: Obama bowed too deeply to Emperor": That seems to be one of the problems that President Barack Obama has to fix. American people just have to be better than others. Can't show even a speck of respect to others. Not even to an elderly Emperor who has no political power. It's our way or the highway. Time to stop acting like a high school kid. America, grow up.”

Yeah, Dick. Grow up.