POORMOUTHED. Literally, the only interesting thing about Cheney cursing is the weird defenses offered for the Veep's brief bout of coprolalia. Here's a fellow who blames Cheney's outburst on liberal prevarication -- it starts out like this:

But however impolitic his outburst, it's hard to blame him. Lies, distortions, and other types of misrepresentation have become standard rhetorical devices for the disloyal opposition...

...and goes on, and on, like this:

The deeper cause of this cognitive dissonance is postmodern relativism, which makes it too easy to rationalize lies. Thanks to its over-representation in academia and the media, the Democratic Party contains a disproportionate number of people who believe that truth is an illusion, or an imposition of hierarchical power. On the other hand, the Republican Party contains a disproportion of believers in traditional virtues like civility. They have responded to ever-shriller deceits with a constraint that has often disadvantaged them politically. Woe to the Democrats, and the nation, if that constraint disappears. Without civility, we are lost.

If I'm reading this right (if there is a right way to read such a thing, besides quickly, or not at all), Cheney's f-bomb is a wonderful teaching opportunity to discuss the evils of liberalism. But then, what isn't?

And I am loving the idea of Republican civility. You'd think that, with so many countervailing examples widely available, the author would take a moment to try and explain why, those examples notwithstanding, things aren't as bad as they look. Instead, he just bulls on: we are civil, you are moral relativists.

State of the discourse, 2004. How long before it's all just animal noises and explosions?