The word evil gets tossed around a little too lightly by Republicans. The recently deceased Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union evil, ironically at a time when we as a nation were supporting dictators across much of the Third World and turning our head to their bloody suppressions. Bush uses it even more promiscuously.

We Episcopalian come across it sometimes in our prayer book, and assuming we do subscribe to belief in the devil, it is usually the adjective most often linked to him. Even Judas rarely merits the word. But Republicans like it a lot. I do not.

But I have one exception. My wife who rarely uses superlatives, admitted the other night that when she thinks of Dick Chaney, the word evil as a description seems to fit. That is totally out of character for her. But I fervently agree. That man is truly evil. As much as I hated Richard Nixon, I never considered him evil. But Chaney?-he's a devil of a man, that is for sure.

And hopefully, others are seeing it to. Recent events:

June 29 at the New York Yankees game where the VP decided to hang out with his rich friend Steinbrenner. During the singing of "God Bless America" in the seventh inning, an image of Cheney was shown on the scoreboard. It was greeted with booing, so the Yankees quickly removed the image.

Is that not cool? That's probably evil of me to think that.

Then there was the interview with Ron Reagan in the New York Times regarding how his mom fared at the Rotunda live-in for the late President Reagan:

How did your mother feel about being ushered to her seat by President Bush?

Well, he did a better job than Dick Cheney did when he came to the rotunda. I felt so bad. Cheney brought my mother up to the casket, so she could pay her respects. She is in her 80's, and she has glaucoma and has trouble seeing. There were steps, and he left her there. He just stood there, letting her flounder. I don't think he's a mindful human being. That's probably the nicest way I can put it.

And there's more. Here is what Newsweek has on the "walking dude", as Stephen King likes to portray to devil:

June 28, 2004 issue - America was under attack, and somebody had to make a decision. Dick Cheney, huddled in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center under the White House, had just urged the traveling George W. Bush not to return to Washington. The president had left Florida aboard Air Force One at 9:55 a.m. on 9/11 "with no destination at take-off," as last week's 9-11 Commission report noted. Nor had Bush given any known instructions on how to respond to the attacks. Now Cheney faced another huge decision on a morning in which every minute seemed monumental. The two airliners had already crashed into the Twin Towers, another into the Pentagon. Combat air patrols were aloft, and a military aide was asking for shoot-down authority, telling Cheney that a fourth plane was "80 miles out" from Washington. Cheney didn't flinch, the report said. "In about the time it takes a batter to decide to swing," he gave the order to shoot it down, telling others the president had "signed off on the concept" during a brief phone chat. When the plane was 60 miles out, Cheney was again informed and again he ordered: take it out.

Then Joshua Bolten, after what he described in testimony as "a quiet moment," spoke up. Bolten, the White House deputy chief of staff, asked the veep to get back in touch with the president to "confirm the engage order." Bolten was clearly subordinate to Cheney, but "he had not heard any prior conversation on the subject with the president," the 9/11 report notes. Nor did the real-time notes taken by two others in the room, Cheney's chief of staff, "Scooter" Libby—who is known for his meticulous record-keeping—or Cheney's wife, Lynne, reflect that such a phone call between Bush and Cheney occurred or that such a major decision as shooting down a U.S. airliner was discussed. Bush and Cheney later testified the president gave the order. And national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice and a military aide said they remembered a call, but gave few specifics. The report concluded "there is no documentary evidence for this call."
But the question of Cheney's behavior that day is one of many new issues raised in the remarkably detailed, chilling account laid out in dramatic presentations by the 9-11 Commission. NEWSWEEK has learned that some on the commission staff were, in fact, highly skeptical of the vice president's account and made their views clearer in an earlier draft of their staff report. According to one knowledgeable source, some staffers "flat out didn't believe the call ever took place."

Hmmmmm. The vice president is a liar as well as evil. But there's more. The Newsweek article continues:

This week the 9-11 commissioners find themselves engaged in another testy dispute, especially with Cheney, over the ties between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. For the Bush team, making the case that Saddam and bin Laden were linked is one of its most sensitive credibility issues, a key justification for following its assault on Al Qaeda with a much costlier and bloodier war in Iraq. The vice president insisted in short-tempered public remarks last week that the commission had agreed the Iraq-Qaeda links were extensive. But commission vice chair Hamilton acknowledged to NEWSWEEK the commissioners had differences with the administration. "We didn't have any evidence of collaboration or cooperation," Hamilton said flatly. He added that bin Laden's ties "to Iran and Pakistan were certainly stronger than any tie he had to Iraq." Despite Cheney's comments, Bartlett said the White House did not officially raise any questions about the report's conclusions on Qaeda-Iraq ties.

Cheney has now challenged the commission point blank. Asked in a CNBC interview whether he had more information about Iraq-Qaeda links than the commission, Cheney remarked, "Probably." This comment stunned Kean and Hamilton, who asked Cheney to pass that extra intel on to them. (Administration spokesmen had previously said they gave the commission whatever it needed to do its job.) The vice president also reasserted his belief that a long-alleged meeting between 9/11 hijacker Muhammad Atta and an Iraqi intel agent on April 9, 2001, in Prague might have occurred. Some 9/11 staffers said they were astonished by this: their report, citing cell-phone records, concludes unambiguously that Atta could not have been in Prague on that date; he was in Florida. (NEWSWEEK has also learned that Czech investigators and U.S. intelligence have obtained corroborated evidence which they believe shows that the Iraqi spy who allegedly met Atta was away from Prague on that day.)

On several occasions since 9/11, in speeches before the Iraq war and since, Cheney has run ahead of Bush on policy, only to be lassoed back in by the White House. In August 2002, he dismissed U.N. inspections just before Bush called for them in a speech. Later that fall the veep suggested in another speech that Iraq might have had a hand in 9/11, forcing Bush to deny later that it did. And some staffers thought it was interesting that Bush and Cheney insisted on testify-ing before the commission together. (Sources say much of their testimony focused on the shoot-down issue.) So far the two are staying on message in asserting Qaeda-Iraq links.

Well, let's not stop there. The Washington Post notes a recent NBC interview where Chaney once again lies, and in a very arrogant way. From the Washington Post:

June 17, 2004. Vice President Cheney talking to CNBC's Gloria Borger.

Borger: "Well, let's go to MohamedAtta for a minute, because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, 'pretty well confirmed.' "

Cheney: "No, I never said that."

Borger: "Okay."

Cheney: "Never said that."

Borger: "I think that is . . . "

Cheney: "Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9th of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down."

On Dec. 9, 2001. Cheney talking to NBC's Tim Russert.

Cheney: "Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that -- it's been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack. Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don't know at this point, but that's clearly an avenue that we want to pursue."

One final word: The New York Times/CBS poll finds Cheney with 21 percent approval rating. A rabid, junkyard dog would command about the same about of approval, but would certainly be more physically appealing than Chaney.