More sparrows

Wow. Holy S to the H to the (asterisk) to the T and a wowy-wow-wow. Andy Vance points me to Dick Cheney's 2004 Christmas card. It quotes Benjamin Franklin:

"If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it likely that an empire can rise without His help?" [1]

So, dig: that was one providential sparrow that pooped [2] on our Commander in Chief yesterday - more freighted with symbolism than the white whale in Moby Dick.

Cheney says God is on our side when it comes to our "empire" (although he said at the subsequent World Economic Forum that he didn't mean we have, you know, an empire.) [1]

He gives as proof Ben Franklin's deployment of a marvelous line from the Sermon on the Mount, in the Book of Matthew, quoted below, that says if you want to know God's design when it comes to the question of empires, study the sparrows.

Then, lo and behold, a sparrow empties our bowels upon our emperor.

I'm not a religious man, but I'm just about ready to become one now. God is in his heaven, all is right with the world: he's on the side of the American people, and against the Bush regime. He hates the empire Bush is building.

Mighty sparrow. You have just told us everything that we need to know. You have even shown us what an arrogant ass is Dick Cheney, fundamentally distorting the words of our Founding Fathers by 180 degrees. News flash, Mr. Vice President: Benjamin Franklin's intention in delivering these words may just have been to convey that empires are bad.

[UPDATE. "Sh*t and Awe." [3]]