Cheney speech: c’mon Calgary, you can do better than this

Only about 50 protesters showed up to Cheney’s Calgary speech, a dismal showing compared to the far more sizeable crowd at his Vancouver speech the night before. I realize Calgary is a conservative city but with Nenshi, I thought things were changing.

Even the Calgary Herald reporting was soft.

Ten years after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, one of the most loathed figures of the George W. Bush administration is still ducking in and out of secret entrances under heavy security as he promotes his political memoir, In My Time. 

In Calgary, he needn’t have bothered. 

About 50 noisy but peaceful protesters were outside the Fairmont Palliser on Tuesday as guests arrived about an hour before the former U.S. vice-president was scheduled to speak to a $500-a-plate dinner.

Inside, a ‘frail’ and ‘sympathetic’ Cheney was up to his old tricks, using fear as a weapon. “Frail and oddly sympathetic”? That’s pathetic, Robert Remington.

Inside, Cheney told an exclusive crowd of about 200 that he worries about another 9/11-style attack by terrorist with “dirty” nuclear weapons. 

“I worry about that,” Cheney said. Nuclear technology is such that “a relatively small number of people can do damage to a city.” 

Coughing occasionally and looking somewhat frail and oddly sympathetic, Cheney also said the so-called Arab Spring has been generally positive, but cautioned that “the jury is still out.”

One can’t help but wonder if the venue also has history with pedophiles.