Warner P. Woodworth

As Cheney goes down in flames,
BYU lights a candle to honor him

by Warner P. Woodworth

Dick Cheney came to Brigham Young University last week to speak at
commencement exercises. It was a disappointing contrast to past
graduation events when we had speakers such as Elie Wiesel, the Auschwitz
survivor who condemns human evil; Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who spent his life fighting poverty through microcredit; and Gordon B.
Hinckley, LDS Church president and our beloved prophet.
While the vice president attempted to offer a message of hope for the
graduates, most of what he said fell on deaf ears. It was as if the great
American Ralph Waldo Emerson was standing behind Cheney yelling out:
What you do speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say!"
Violence and war, false justifications for U.S. aggression, obscene
language habits, acceptance of human torture, spying on citizens,
disconnects from reality, and intolerance of dissent - these were the
underlying elements of the speech to our students.
My views are not a criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, its leaders or BYU administrators. They certainly have the
right to invite anyone to campus they prefer. My concerns have been about Dick
Cheney, his values and politics, and the destructive outcomes of the current
administration which have seared the conscience of America, including the
cultures of college campuses, which unfortunately include my own school in
Provo. I have been surprised by the hundreds of e-mails, letters and phone
calls from people who learned in the media of my criticisms of Mr. Cheney
coming to speak at BYU commencement. On the positive side, three-quarters or
more of those messages have been extremely positive. They include -mails
from LDS Church leaders in Latin America and Africa, European Latter-day
Saints, and Mormons from across the United States, including many BYU
alumni, important donors to our institution, converts to the church, as well
as parents of past and current students. However, the small minority of negative messages was quite vitriolic. A number of them copied the dean and/or university administrators, demanding that I be fired. Others were outright hate mail, and some were full of obscenities, much like those frequently used by Dick Cheney himself.
About half of those could probably be termed as mere "ranting and raving"
because the individuals were evidently so out of control they could not compose a
coherent sentence, or even spell correctly. It was apparent that most of
those did not receive their education at BYU. Among the negative e-mails from
Utahns, a number expressed outrage that I, a BYU professor, could have the gall to communicate any positive attitudes toward Democratic leaders in America.
I was quite surprised about such logic. According to national studies, I admittedly reside in he most conservative city of America, Provo.
My voting district is among the most Republican in the nation.
But much of this is merely a recent trend. Were they not aware fhat for many years
in Utah and Mormon history, most Utahns voted with Democrats, locally, in state offices, and nationally? Apparently these people hadn't noticed that our state largely began shifting toward the right in the 1970s as thousands of conservatives moved
here from Republican hotbeds like California's Orange County.
Indeed, many old-timers in the state still talk about the "Californication" of Utah elections which started the decline of the Democratic Party. While this trend has continued up to the present, apparently few LDS members here seem aware of the numerous cases of corruption that have occurred since the Right took control of national politics in 2000.
Sure, the earlier Clinton-Monica Lewinsky case was offensive.
But look at Republican evils leading right up to last fall's elections: House whip
Tom DeLay was indicted along with others for abuse of power and illegal
money matters; Bob Ney of Ohio pleaded guilty to conspiracy; the Abramoff
scandal caused at least four other Republicans to lose their offices; two
conservatives lost their congressional seats because of assaults on women;
Republican presidential candidate George Allen of Virginia was destroyed
over racial slurs before the election. Thankfully, the majority of honest
Americans could not be manipulated at the last minute in 2006 to vote
Republican like they were in the 2000 and 2004 elections.
All in all, the record is obvious. Dick Cheney is a colossal failure, as
confirmed by recent public opinion polls of 28-32 percent. Some 36 cities
have passed resolutions calling for Bush/Cheney impeachments, and the
Vermont Senate voted for the same, while the states of Washington and
Wisconsin are pushing similar action.
Now Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, is formally filing articles of impeachment
against the vice president. While his few supporters still hope
for a turnaround, we at BYU now have the dubious distinction of having
honored a U.S. official who is going down in flames before our very eyes.

(source: Salt Lake Tribune)