Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

He's making fun of the supposed, or real, moral inconstancy of the 60's liberal left. He is probably beng flooded with letters of warm support from the anti-intellectual conservative base. The only thing we don’t know is whether he planned the original comment to Leahy, or merely pulled off the damage-control with enormous finesse.

I'm not a philosopher, but I am trying to get into law school, and showed up at a couple of high school debate tournaments when I was a kid.

1. Cheney "probably" told Senator Leahy to fuck himself, and yet stated with definite certainty that he "felt better afterwards" and had no regrets. The clear implication (if not stated explicitly) here is that Cheney telling Leahy to fuck himself was the proximate cause of him feeling better afterwards (A -> B). It can also be inferred that Cheney did feel afterwards and there were no regrets (B -> ~C). Accordingly, we can assume that Cheney did tell the senior senator from Vermont to fuck himself and he had no regrets; A -> B -> ~C, or A -> ~C.

Since the world in which A occurs is a member of the set of all worlds, and since "probably" implies a probability of greater than 50 percent, then it is technically accurate for Cheney to state that he "probably" acted while "definitely" drew the benefits of that action. He is simply shifting discursively from talking about the larger set, to the smaller set (the world in which he did in fact tell the Green Mountain State's greybeard to fuck himself).

The question asks if there is a conflict between the first mode, which is said to contain uncertainty.

"Probably" being taken as an indicator of less than 100 percent probability; the definition of "probably" in the dictionary (Merriam-Webster) is "insofar as seems reasonably true, factual, or to be expected : without much doubt" - which is broad enough under this definition to include, I think, a doubt-quantity of zero (or more plainly, absolute certainty).

It could also be argued that "probably" -- "without *much* doubt" -- might demand the presence of at least a tiny amount of doubt. This is what the question is getting at. However, this unreading is not quite fair; there isn't an explicit assertion in the dictionary definition that the presence of doubt is the sin qua non of "probably." Indeed, the part of the definition reading "to be expected" would seem to contradict the narrow reading of "probably." If doubt were the sin qua non of "probably", then we would expect that, once in a blue moon, our expectations would be dashed! The whole concept thus folds in upon itself into logical absurdity, if this dictionary definition is to be read narrowly.

Therefore, as stated, certain fuck-itude is merely a subset of probable fuck-itude, as theorized above.

Q.E.D. There is a logically coherent explanation for what Cheney said.

Although I would also submit that Cheney is absolutely frickin' insane for totally other reasons.

C. believes himself justified, but not by the afterglow. He believes that he suffered a conspicuous slight, for which conspicuous retaliation was in order. (See Aristotle, Rhetoric ii, "anger.") The slight, of course, was the public challenge to his ethics w/r/t Halliburton.

This does not, of course, mean that C. is not a psychopath. If one is slighted justly, then shame, not anger, is more appropriate. So we have 3 possibilities:

(1) Cheney's behavior is blameless, and he did right in feeling wrongly slighted. Not a psychopath; justified.

(2) C.'s behavior is blameworthy, and he knows it, but publicly professes otherwise. Neither psychopath nor justified, but simply a liar.

(3) C.'s behavior is blameworthy, and he doesn't know it. Psychopath.

Also, if the glove fits, you must acquit.

Thank you Milwaukee! w00t!

(I've always wanted to say that at the end of a term-paper or final exam essay in college. I never got the chance -- I graduated before my time. Gotta get back into academia before I die! Die I tell you!)

2.

a. It was later revealed, after the Cheney F-bomb, by a certain Republican legislator that many of them had wanted to tell Leahy to fuck off. Apparently, this behavior will be condoned, and among Cheney's cohorts this is within ethnical norms (what's normal, isn't the whole question implying moral relativism?). Therefore I find the first part of this question to be a trick question.

b. Egoistic hedonism, of the "if it feels good, do it" variety; also act utilitarianism could be cited as a justification if the net result was positive (that is, if the action made Cheney feel better about himself than it made Leahy feel bad); also if certain tenants of vulgar nihilism are taken literally ("fuck 'em all").

Now that Cheney has confirmed this language is both OK to use and feels good to use it, are we now going to see the Republican population emulating their leader?

Isn't the issue about the sub-standard use of the word "probably"? Is there any doubt that Cheney actually told Leahy where to go? Sounds like from what Jim says that there may have been some disappointment in not being able to rouse the choir to chime in, no?
So the sub-standard usage is like that which occurs here: Cheney is asked whether his name is 'Cheney' and the sub-standard reply is "Probably".
Do we need to invite Leibnitz with his 'possible worlds' notion to find out where Cheney is? I don't think so.
This is on a par with insubordination and for that, my Dad used to spank me.
Isn't this what's needed here. I'll volunteer.

"Likely" and "probable" must here be taken to refer to epistemic probability. It's difficult to come up with a meaningful non-epistemic sense in which the actual world is "more likely than not" to be a member of some class of possible worlds (not least because, on some plausible interpretations, there are proper-class-many possible worlds where a given X obtains and proper-class-many where X does not obtain). Conventional notions of the "probability" of an event do not map well onto possible-worlds semantics. One's interpretation of the question also depends heavily on one's ideas about transworld identity - it is not at all clear that "Cheney", as opposed to some counterpart of Cheney, exists in any nonactual possible world. (Still, it makes the debate a bit more fun than the classical examples of Adam's fall, H2O and XYZ, and the not-one-metre metre-stick, doesn't it?)

Cheney says "Go fuck yourself".

His face gets rearranged by a Democrat. Republicans rush in, being such tough guys, and their asses hit the floor with much blood spilled.

All else is talk.

Fuck them.

Can posts be more divergent than William's and John's?
Ah, thanks John, nobody told me there was a fight... I'm glad the repugs lost.
William, I think you hit the nail on the head with "...it is not at all clear that "Cheney", as opposed to some counterpart of Cheney, exists in any nonactual possible world."
Right you are...not the least bit clear, especially when we consider entanglement theory and the devastation that wrecks upon Gaussian distributions....
Did you happen to notice any fights in those other ah... nonactual worlds?...Over.

The only thing you can say for sure is that Cheney likes the word "probably." He also answered "probably," you may recall, when asked whether he had information on the supposed Saddam-al Qaeda link that the 9/11 commission did not have. It made equally little sense in that context.

The oh-so-manly Bush-Cheney ticket: in 2000, they prove it with an a-bomb directed at Adam Clymer, and in 2004 with an f-bomb directed at Senator Leahy. And they cut brush too.

Nancy -I am reminded of the exchange between the judge who has just lost it with the witness's prevarication and dresses him down with " Answer the question please if your language permits of that fine distinction between 'yes' and 'no' ".
With Cheney it's not so much "that it makes little sense" but that his stature has cowed the audience, (the press mostly but some of us right here in Rivercity too). This reply is a slap on the face, not just the English language but those in context. The stunning effect luckily is more or less temporary and now that we've returned to our senses it's time to srike back, no?

There is uncertainty, some say that Cheney told Leahy to "Go fuck yourself", and some say that he said "Fuck off". There is the uncertainty.

Whichever one it was, it made him feel better.

But, he has no regrets, because we all know Democrats aren't, you know, people.

How do all you Born Again Prudes feel about this from John Kerry, last December, to Rolling Stone:

"When I voted for the war, I voted for what I thought was best for the country. Did I expect Howard Dean to go off to the left and say, 'I'm against everything?' Sure. Did I expect George Bush to fuck it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did."

Senator Patrick Leahy, supporter of the Inducing Infringements of Copyright Act (IICA)

http://digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com/entry/7661224023490878/

If I was in front of Senator Leahy, I would like to believe I had the cojones to probably tell him to go fuck himself. Fucking sellout.

But Cheney is a psycho. Indeed.

(On the other hand Brad, your blog software probably sucks. It apparently strips HTML URLs out, and doesn't automatically make text URLs into links.

Fuck you, Patrick! And the horse you rode in on!

Nothing Cheney does is OK with me, but I like the precedent he sets here. Just as an evil priest can perform a valid sacrament, a loathsome Vice President can set a binding precedent. Let the wild rumpus begin!

Perhaps not everyone here remembers it, but I have stated my principled opposition to civility many times, here and elsewhere. I get my allies wherever I can find them -- most often in the Republican Party. This is my small concession to bipartisanship.

Patrick:
"How do all you Born Again Prudes feel about this from John Kerry, last December, to Rolling Stone"

This particular born again prude says "fuckin' A - go Big John!!"

Well spoke Z and I'm glad you're doin the horse in too.
The next bit leaves me stumped though: " Perhaps not everyone here remembers it, but I have stated my principled opposition to civility many times,..."
Surely you're over-doing it by stating your principled opposition to civility?? Sorta like announcing, with some fanfare, that you are about to fart, no? ( pun only partially but belatedly intended)
I've awarded you the Miss Manners prize in the past ( telling Mike to 'Fuck OFF and Die' was the winner on that occasion) and I see no reason why you need to change anything now to keep that prize.
Somehow I think this last "stating" bit should've been fed to the horse...or somethin. Maybe it's the "principled" bit...or "opposition"...

Hey Patrick. Two prudes do not make right. Go to your room, and leave the rest of this discussion to the grownups, please.

There is a difference between a contemptuous personal insult and a descriptive comment evaluating somebody's actions.

Kerry said something of substance in strong but, in his opinion, appropriate language. And he said it within a forum (Rolling Stone) in which that language is appropriate.

Cheney said nothing of substance; he simply personally insulted somebody. What makes Cheney's outburst more contemptible (and ironic) is the focus on "family values" that the Republicans trumpet from time to time.

Hello:

he is not a pyschopath

but a sociopath.
A sociopath does things evil; or morally wrong and feels anything he does is justified because he now has a complex of a higher diety.
Also, you can say he is a sociopathic liar
I suggest all of you find the white house commentline on its web site (www.whitehouse.gov)
and call up those poor abused seniors answering the phone, and drop the F-bomb on them (because it is appropo) and also explain that you want to really know if he said that, and why is the election-style rehtoric going to such a level that is similar in latin america; and why the republicans are starting to lower the standards of discourse, and why Cheney has not been properly diagnosed with "pumphead" resulting from anisthetia from his multiple heart operations
We are all paying a serious price for that anisthethiologist

You guys really should read more Richard Rorty.

When Cheney says he "probably" told Pat Leahy to go fuck himself, he is demonstrating that he knows there is an uncertainty about whether he will be able to deny it later with any credibility. If he had said it on live broadcast television with an audience in the millions, there would be no such uncertainty. Since he only said it in front of a handful of people who have little incentive to go on the record recounting the event as they witnessed it, he knows he will "probably" not be able to get away with denying it later— but he's holding out hope for the possibility.

When he claims he felt good after having a "frank exchange of views" with Senator Leahy (in which he "probably" told his colleague to go fuck himself), he is offering an implicit excuse for his violation of traditional norms on the grounds that Leahy deserved to be told off with a crude remark. He is, after all, a Democrat who pretends to have the power to interfere with Cheney's continued conflicting interests between his post in government and his role at Halliburton. If Senator Leahy actually possessed the such power, then Cheney's remarks would have been poorly chosen, and he would probably not be claiming to feel good about them afterward (unless he was employing false bravado to mask his anxiety over their possible consequences).

Ahh Brad you don't understand. Richard Cheney is, as always, humbly seeking the truth without ever going beyond the facts which he knows with complete certainty. He can't possibly know what happened in the past. Is he a Vice President who told a senator to go fuck himself or is he a butterfly dreaming that he is a vice president who told a senator to go fuck himself ? There is no way of knowning anymore than there is any way of knowing if Saddam Hussein was on one of the planes that hit the WTC and beemed back to Iraq at the last minute.

However, Mr Cheney does know three things (or did at the time he answered the question). He had just been asked if he had told a senator to fuck himself. It is highly unlikely that a reporter would dare ask such a question without overwhelming evidence, so the hypothesis was probably true. On the other hand, Cheney felt no regret. This is evidence that he had said no such thing, being as he is, a gentleman. On the other other hand, he noted that he had been feeling a strange sense of emotional relief since the photo op. What could have caused such a sense of relief wondered our gentlemanly quester after the truth ? Perhaps a unique verbal outburst ? No way of knowing since Mr Cheney has definitely never used the F word before.

Sadly, his quest for the truth foundered on the shoals of metaphysicial uncerctainty as all honest inquiries must.

I really think there is only one course of action open to Vice President Cheney. He can just go fuck himself.

I forgot what I wrote but I have no regrets and I feel better now.

Finally, something I know something about! Personality disorders (from a distance) are great fun. Psychopath (old jargon)=sociopath (new jargon). I knew (and know) lots of sociopaths, and Mr. Cheney, he's no sociopath(probably)-- he's just a typical nasty politician with, perhaps, mild to moderate sociopathic tendencies. In order to be a full-on sociopath, you need to exhibit longstanding patterns of abusing others for fun and profit, without regard for their rights or feelings. Hey, wait a minute. . . . Anyway,look up psychopathy (sociopathy) in DSM4--the definition is actually hilarious. I also like borderline personality disorder (also from a safe distance).

Robert, most eloquently put. It took the gist of my argument; i.e. that the answer is 2, as Cheney clearly flits between many possible worlds (none of which fit contextually with any I have yet visited sadly) and that this example of the many possible worlds theory pleased him and made him feel better; and roots it solidly in his inherent gentlemanly honesty and decency.

I have one issue with your suggested course of action however, would it not be more appropriate if we were to call for tenders from interested corpororations, rather than allow him the no-bid option of performing it himself?

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