Dick "Gadianton" Cheney

In family scripture reading this morning we were in Helaman 6. I was mentally likening unto us and thinking of suspects who might be the Gadianton Robbers among us today. The usual suspects came to mind, urban gangs, the Mafia, terrorists, the Tri-lateral Commission (just kiddin'). And then it came to me, Dick Cheney!

Don't ever ask your crazy Uncle who he thinks should be your Vice President

I was going through the check list: pride and arrogance (check); works of darkness and secret murder (pretty likely - check); robbing and plundering (Halliburton - check); violating laws (has Dick traveled outside the US? Any chance of ending up the the Hague? - check); whoredoms (? - well, I'll give him that one, I guess); stirred up to anger (see picture - check); wars (check); covenants and oaths (book deal contracts, at minimum - check); secret signs and words (security clearances - check); even punishing those who revealed the secrets (Scooter Libby set up as the fall-guy - check); turning backs on the poor and meek (subject to interpretation, but I'd say - check); and all to get gain and power (check).

The funny thing is, most of this is not all that secret as he just wrote a book, but that may go to the "pride and arrogance" part. Conservative columnist George F. Will even called him to task:

565 pages and a simple apology would have been in order in some of them. Which is to say, the great fact of those eight years was we went to war — a big war, a costly war — under false pretenses. To write a memoir in which you say, essentially, nothing seriously went wrong? If I wrote a memoir on my last week, I would have things to apologize for.

I hate to make such grotesque comparisons to evil in scripture, but for heaven's sake! if anybody has it coming, Dick certainly does.