Deconstructing Cheney's De-Inaugural Wheelchair










What I felt was this:



26 thoughts on “Deconstructing Cheney's De-Inaugural Wheelchair


  2. I wasn’t shocked by the crap chair nor surprised by how quickly the media pointed out his wheelchair use was temporary. But then it’s not that long since the ADA. FDR hid his wheelchair use.

    I think it’s both sad and great that I still get a thrill when Obama uses the word “disabled” in a speech.

  3. I was shocked to see the obviously hastily-assembled temporary ramp he was pushed down.


    You’d think after the FDR days, there would be more accessible places in the area.



    Liz, thanks for writing this!

  6. I did bite back venomous comments about permanently disabling Cheney, but only because I was talking to Liz, not because I didn’t *think* them.


  7. I was surprised Geo H W Bush didn’t have a wheelchair. He appeared to have great difficulty walking and I was alarmed that his wife abandoned him on the stairs as he arrived at the swearing in. No one assisted him and he looked trapped on the stairs.

    Did he have hip surgery recently?


  8. Thank you–very eloquent; and of course you’re right. In and out of the events and official buildings it would’ve been freight elevators and rickety ramps all the way. The “great man brought low” schadenfreude speaks right to the way those with disabilities are perceived (unconsciously or not) as lower beings. That’s why my mom would be asked “what does he want?” in reference to my dad sometimes, instead of their asking him. A great piece; you should expand it to an article!

  9. Interesting observations on the specific wheelchair. It never occurred to me that he would have anything other than a hospital clunker — because the only people I’ve ever seen with lightweight, well-designed wheelchairs are people who use them long-term.

    I think that (1) he was hampered by the ignorance of the average American on accessible technology, and (2) he may have been hampered by the bias (from him, or from the people who arranged the wheelchair for him) that having a good wheelchair would telegraph “PERMANENTLY DISABLED” rather than “temporarily injured.” A hospital wheelchair very definitely telegraphs “injury” rather than “disability,” and that may have been more important to him (or his handlers) than a comfortable, usable piece of equipment.

  10. I admit I was gleeful at seeing his disability, and seeing him in a hospital clunker.


    Also, as several of my friends (and Craig Ferguson and Conan O’Brien) pointed out, he was in the wheelchair because he pulled a muscle lifting boxes he didn’t trust anyone else to handle (because, surely, the White House staff would have gladly helped move heavy boxes for an elderly man with a bad heart, if only he had asked), so his secrecy had come back to bite him, in the end.

    …And then, I felt bad for making the connection between physical disability and shadowy character. But in this case, it’s a matter of historical record, not metaphor.

  11. Thanks for helping me think about this. I’d felt like the evil cripple stuff was emanating from Cheney and his evilness rather than from the wheelchair stereotype, and still do to some extent, but I’ll think about it some more.

    I’d have to say that I do think it would be an “awful fate” for Cheney to use a wheelchair, because it’s limiting and inconvenient. I think people who must use wheelchairs do have an “awful fate” and pity them. I’ve had to use crutches, and a knee scooter, and didn’t like being so immobile. I felt lucky when I could walk again.

  12. Hi, Liz. After spending some time in a chair myself, I was very interested to see what happened there … and it was just as I feared. When he was whisked away from the procession onto the steps, I was appalled. When he sat in the midst of all those standing and chatting, and no one talked to him, when no one saw him, I felt a terrible pang.

    I pointed it out to my mom friends, over for a viewing party, but it wasn’t enough.

    Thanks for this.

  13. There’s a lot to think about in your post. I did feel delight that he might be in pain, that he might feel himself to be weak, and that he caused himself an injury that made him face his dependence on others. I didn’t like the “dr. evil” bits, but I joked about volunteering to push him into the Potomac. I think I really fell into the stereotype that the use of the chair = less powerful. I was acutely aware of the limitations it created for his full participation and was embarrassed that his dignified travel wasn’t handled better. I have to think about where my brain went on some of your points.

  14. My dad was wheelchair-bound and I’d say that the quality of his chair was more due to the unrestrained stranglehold supply/insurance companies have on manufacture and distribution of quality chairs. (Imagine he’d needed a bariatric one … he’d have been rolled down that ramp in a Walmart shopping cart.)

    That’s an issue I wouldn’t mind seeing addressed.

  15. I was thinking about attending the inauguration. While I could have done the two mile walk from a friend’s apartment to the Mall, but I doubt I could have stood the four or five hours in cold. I thought about taking my wheel chair but looking at the route I would have had to take, I decided against it and watched it on tv instead.

    I feel that I should have been there more than Cheney.


  17. Re, why even a wealthy powerful man uses a clunker of a wheelchair: I suspect that’s probably primarily due to widespread ignorance about the difference among different types of wheelchairs and how much difference the right wheelchair can make to your quality of life, even if you’re only using it for a relatively short time.


    But, I suspect that most people who have not really seen wheelchairs up close on a frequent basis are not especially conscious that there really ARE such dramatic differences among different types of chairs. So if they suddenly need a chair, especially if they only need it short term (so it doesn’t really occur to them to research it much if no one encourages them to do so), they just take what’s offered. I suspect most people are just too oblivious to the existence of any option beside the hospital clunker.

    I also suspect that there is an issue where many people still just automatically assume that medical personnel always know best. If they’re saying, “Here, take this chair,” then there may be an assumption that, well, they know what they’re doing, so this must be the best wheelchair for the current circumstances, injury, etc.” It doesn’t occur to them to challenge those assumptions enough to say, “Wait a minute, I don’t just want to ‘get by’ in this wheelchair, I want to actually continue on living my life even for the relatively short time I need to use this chair.” (I wonder how the medical personnel would react if more people did that? How simple would it be to even FIND middling-decent rental chair for a few weeks or months? Would medical personnel work with you if you asked for something you can push more independently and actually do things in, or would they just look at you blankly and act all confused about why you can’t just have your spouse do everything for you for a few weeks?)


    For someone who doesn’t already know much about disability issues, I think it would be too easy to attribute any temporary inconveniences or humiliations (such as being unable to join other people for certain activities, or having to take an inconvenient route somewhere) to, “Oh well, this is just what happens when you’re injured. In a few more days I won’t have to worry about this sort of nuisance any more.” And they totally fail to make the extrapolation that

    1. It doesn’t HAVE to be this way, and,

    2. It’s like this ALL THE TIME (not just temporarily) for anyone with permanent disabilities, and,

    3. They would feel very, very, VERY differently about this “annoyance” if they had to deal with it as a constant feature in their daily existence (permanent disability), and not just as a random glitch in their life (temporary injury), and,


  18. Debbie said…



    See Hugh Gallagher’s book FDR’s Splendid Deception for more information on the incredible lengths to which the Secret Service went to make the world traversable for the President.

    The sad thing was that it was all temporary – there was no conception that these changes could benefit others. At Hyde Park, curators removed all the ramps and other accessibility features for years, until badgered by disability advocates to make the National Park property accessible again.

  19. ==Do you pity me, to the extent that you would damn Cheney?==


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