Mormons in arms

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It's nice to see that the dipshit known as Dick Cheney isn't getting a free pass even in the hardest of the GOP's hardcore heartland:

The invitation extended to Vice President Dick Cheney to be the commencement speaker at Brigham Young University has set off a rare, continuing protest at the Mormon university, one of the nation’s most conservative.

Some of the faculty and the 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, who are overwhelmingly Republican, have expressed concern about the Bush administration’s support for the war in Iraq and other policies, but most of the current protest has focused on Mr. Cheney’s integrity, character and behavior.

He's "a morally dubious man," said one student. If that's code for amoral bastard, I concur.

Of course, this is but a minority of BYU's student body and faculty. (The overwhelming number of students are not protesting, whatever their private thoughts.) And one wishes the protests were rather less polite -- and certainly far less moralistic. It's like Cheney isn't nearly conservative enough for them. "I just don’t feel that Cheney represents what we want B.Y.U. to represent," said one Democratic student (a lonesome political soul, one imagines). I suspect he doesn't. There's all that "sleaze" after all, as one professor put it. "We espouse honesty, chastity, integrity, ethics, virtue and morality, and he does not epitomize those values." Okay, I can agree with that.

The best line comes from a Cheney supporter, the chairman of the College Republicans: "No matter what you think of Cheney, he’s easily the most powerful man in the world."

Take that, Dubya! The Big Dick's running the asylum.