WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney raised eyebrows on Friday for wearing an olive-drab parka, hiking boots and knit ski cap to represent the United States at a solemn ceremony remembering the liberation of Auschwitz.

Other leaders at the event in Poland on Thursday marking the 60th anniversary of the death camp’s liberation, such as French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin, wore dark, formal overcoats and dress shoes or boots.

“The vice president, however, was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower,” Robin Givhan, The Washington Post’s fashion writer, wrote in the newspaper’s Friday editions.

Between the somber, dark-coated leaders at the outdoor ceremony sat Cheney, resplendent in a green parka embroidered with his name and featuring a fur-trimmed hood, the laced brown boots and a knit ski cap reading “Staff 2001.”

“And, indeed, the vice president looked like an awkward boy amid the well-dressed adults,” Givhan wrote.

________________________________________________

You can see it coming. Liberals are going to scream about how this demonstrates that the people in this administration are a bunch of go-it-alone millionaire cowboys who don’t sweat the details of diplomacy and don’t give a damn what our allies think of us. Conservatives, however, are going to proudly point to this as evidence that the people in this administration are a bunch of go-it-alone millionaire cowboys who don’t sweat the details of diplomacy and don’t give a damn what our allies think of us.

*Sigh* Won’t we ever agree on anything?

Seriously, there’s not a lot of decoding to do here. I suppose we could debate whether this was a clever and nuanced snub directed at the European powers who showed insufficient obedience in the Iraq matter OR whether it was just a case of Cheney and his people not thinking about it nor bothering to check what everyone else was going to wear. We could debate that.

Nah. Either way, it has the same effect. And back here, some people will feel acute embarrassment for our lack of respect for the occasion and other heads of state. Others will applaud Dick Cheney for doing it his own way and “keeping it real.” Though I’d have to wonder how many people in that latter group would wear ripped, stained jeans to a family funeral.

Maybe a couple of ‘em. Especially if Grandma was particularly stingy with the hard candies.


[Vice President Cheney keeping an eye out for the hot cocoa
vendor at Auschwitz’s 50 yard line.]

I suppose Cheney could be sending the message, “Oh, ’scuse me - I didn’t have time to put on my fancy duds because I was too busy workin’ out there fighting for your freedom.” That’s possible. It’d be more convincing if it wasn’t coming from a guy who’s never been combat with anything more lethal than a duck, but it’s possible.

But as I said, it doesn’t matter whether or not there was a message being sent, the message was sent.

Besides, if those high and mighty mucky-mucks had been suddenly attacked by a flock of particularly ornery ducks, only one amongst ‘em would’ve been dressed appropriately to do anything about it. And then who’d be the “embarrassment?” Huh? Are vicious, freedom-hating terrorducks going to wait around while you drop flowers on your fancypants monuments before they shred your snobby overcoats with their deadly beaks of fury? I think not.

I think not.