Edifier du Jour- Daniel 6:6-9(NIV)

⁶ So the administrators and the satraps went as a group to the king and said: “O King Darius, live forever! ⁷ The royal administrators, prefects, satraps, advisers and governors have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or man during the next thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be thrown into the lions’ den. ⁸ Now, O king, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered—in accordance with the laws of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed.” ⁹ So King Darius put the decree in writing.

This is a good example of how not to run an organization. I hear the right side of the Peanut Gallery screaming for a earmark hermeneutic, but that's a bit of a stretch... just a bit.

The analogy that comes to mind was from the early days of M*A*S*H, where Col. Henry Blake was in charge of the medical unit... nominally. He was a doctor drafted in to serve in Korea and really didn't like being in charge much. He had a very diligent clerk, "Radar" O'Reilly, who had all his paperwork prepped for him, needing only Blake's signature. Radar could have had Henry signing away his first-born and declaring today Peach Mango Meatloaf Day and he'd not catch it. Thankfully, Radar was typically nerdy and honest and wouldn't pull such a stunt.

The same can't be said on Darius' ruckus-makers here. They're buttering up the king in order to get an earmark through the one-man conference committee (OK, you got the earmark thing in... you're welcome... it even fits somewhat) that is designed not to line a friends pocket but to dispatch one of the two honest guys in town to a BC Death Valley to face the Tigers... no, make that the lions.

Darius actually seems to be an OK guy here, just a bit gullible. As we'll find out, he doesn't want to send David up the river, but he gets suckered into passing a law that is essentially a bill of attainder for David, but that's OK under the M&P constitution; repealing a law is the one constitutional no-no here.

Laws may come with an environmental impact statement, but they typically don't come with a spiritual impact statement. That's the take-away from this, lest you get a guy who is a wolf in Radar's clothing wanting to pull a fast-one on you.

Comments

[alan]

But he did order an incubator against the standard list, put a goat into the army to save its life, get a steak dinner for everyone, and many other snafus with that skill.