If there’s anywhere in the United States where Dick Cheney should be able to count on a warm welcome, it’s Utah. It’s the most solidly “red” state in the Union, with Republicans outnumbering Dems by nearly a three-to-one margin. Bush won Utah in 2004 with 71% support, easily the highest in the country.
Similarly, if there’s a single college campus in the United States where Cheney would expect to find a friendly audience, it’s Brigham Young University, a politically conservative, church-sponsored private college.
But a funny thing happened on the way to Cheney giving BYU’s commencement address.
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. Several students said, for example, that they were appalled at Mr. Cheney’s use of an expletive on the Senate floor in a June 2004 exchange with Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont.
“The problem is this is a morally dubious man,” said Andrew Christensen, a 22-year-old Republican from Salt Lake City. “It’s challenging the morality and integrity of this institution.”
Conservatives on campus — students and faculty alike — aren’t suddenly moving to the left. No, the problem for Cheney (and arguably the GOP establishment that shares the VP’s twisted values and worldview) is that BYU conservatives are principled. Having an “R” after one’s name isn’t enough to vouch for his or her character — these conservatives expect leaders to walk the walk.
And when someone falls short of their standards, they not only notice, they’re willing to say so. BYU Prof. Warner Woodworth, for example, noted Cheney’s lies about Iraq and his role in leaking the name of an undercover CIA agent in explaining why the university questions the Vice President’s integrity. “It just feels like too much sleaze and not the right values for B.Y.U.,” Woodworth said. “We espouse honesty, chastity, integrity, ethics, virtue and morality, and he does not epitomize those values.”
That’s right, “sleaze.” This is Karl Rove’s nightmare.
Reading the NYT article, the sentiment appears widespread. One student said, “I just don’t feel that Cheney represents what we want B.Y.U. to represent.” Another said Cheney’s conduct in office “just doesn’t fit” with what she had learned from the university’s mission of promoting of “integrity, character and moral development.”
“I thought commencement would be a spiritual, uplifting exercise in which I could take advice from someone I held in the highest esteem,” the student said. “It seems that was an extremely idealistic notion.”
The polls already tell us that Cheney is a political pariah practically everywhere he goes, but Andrew Sullivan is right to note that the VP’s pariah status is expanding into new territory.
The Bush administration doesn’t quite realize it yet, but the president and vice-president will, in the future, become moral pariahs to a lot of people. Not pariah in the sense of Clinton, whose sexual addiction evokes both pity and anger that he kept lying about it. And not pariah in the sense of Nixon, who committed a crime against his opponents, his office and the constitution. What the revulsion of Brigham Young students – yes, Brigham Young students – suggests is that for many of the next generation of natural Republican supporters, Bush and Cheney are moral pariahs. Their wartime deceptions, their skewing of intelligence to suit their preferences, their authorization of torture, their renditions policy, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in a bungled war, their warrant-free wiretapping…
Cheney entered office with what most national leader crave: credibility. As far back as the 2000 campaign, Bush was the inexperienced dolt who struggled with subject-verb agreement, but Cheney was perceived as steady and experienced. He had gravitas. He spoke with authority. When Cheney said something, it was to be taken seriously.
And then the masquerade ended when the truth was impossible to conceal. Cheney is a mendacious clown with a mean streak and a record of incompetence. And even BYU knows it.
Post Script: The NYT quoted David Lassen, chairman of the BYU College Republicans, defending the VP’s appearance on campus. “No matter what you think of Cheney, he’s easily the most powerful man in the world.”
Um, David? I think you’re reading from the wrong talking points — that’s our line, not yours.