Blog Against Theocracy: Less president, more zealot

If you haven't already seen today's revealing portrait of Drunky McStagger in the Washington Post, by all means, go read it. The quotes, both by Drunky himself and from friends and associates, uncover a man who is consumed by his legacy yet baffled at exactly how his presidency got into this mess. In short, we have here a man who is pathologically unable to admit that he has done anything wrong, let alone that he has been "defeated" in any way.

Not surprisingly, Drunky's faith has a profound, even controlling effect on his actions and reactions. He has had theologians and religious leaders come to the White House to advise him, and he rests heavily on his faith to get him through. And it even seems that he's resigned himself to a sort of twisted martyrdom for his cause.

[Former Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger, who advises Bush, said the president has never asked him to kneel down with him in the Oval Office [as President Nixon once did]. "I find him serene," Kissinger said. "I know President Johnson was railing against his fate. That's not the case with Bush. He feels he's doing what he needs to do, and he seems to me at peace with himself."

Bush has virtually given up on winning converts while in office and instead is counting on vindication after he is dead. "He almost has . . . a sense of fatalism," said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who recently spent a day traveling with Bush. "All he can do is do his best, and 100 years from now people will decide if he was right or wrong. It doesn't seem to be a false, macho pride or living in your own world. I find him to be amazingly calm."

Certainly I have no problem with Bush, or anyone for that matter, relying on religious faith to get them over the hump, so to speak. The problem for me is the extent to which his faith overwhelms his decisionmaking. I recall that President Carter was (and still is) a very devout Baptist, and he turned to God when his many critics were getting him down. However, the difference there is that you never heard Carter basically proselytizing from the podium or pulpit, as we have with Bush, and you didn't see policies and programs blatantly favoring Christianity over other religions, like we do today with Bush's "faith-based" initiatives and such.

In short, this is the first time that an American president has imbued Christian ideals so overtly into his presidency; even James A. Garfield, the only ordained minister to become president, respected the constitutional separation of church and state. As a presidential candidate in 1880, Garfield denied that he authored legislation in support of government funding for religious education: "I not only never introduced such a resolution as that to which you refer -- but in several public speeches I have praised the wisdom of our fathers for prohibiting Congress from legislating on the subject of religion -- and leaving it to the voluntary action of the people." I can't imagine similar language coming from the pen of George W. Bush.

Another passage in the Post article delves deeper into Bush's doctrinaire vision of a Christianist presidency:

After reading Andrew Roberts's "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900," Bush brought in the author and a dozen other scholars to talk about the lessons. "What can I learn from history?" Bush asked Roberts, according to [Irwin M.] Stelzer, the Hudson Institute scholar, who participated.

Stelzer said Bush seemed smarter than he expected. The conversation ranged from history to religion and touched on sensitive topics for a president wrestling with his legacy. "He asked me, 'Do you think our unpopularity abroad is a result of my personality?' And he laughed," Stelzer recalled. "I said, 'In part.' And he laughed again."

Much of the discussion focused on the nature of good and evil, a perennial theme for Bush, who casts the struggle against Islamic extremists in black-and-white terms. Michael Novak, a theologian who participated, said it was clear that Bush weathers his difficulties because he sees himself as doing the Lord's work.

"His faith is very strong," said Novak, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "Faith is not enough by itself because there are a lot of people who have faith but weak hearts. But his faith is very strong. He seeks guidance, like every other president does, in prayer. And that means trying to be sure he's doing the right thing. And if you've got that set, all the criticism, it doesn't faze you very much. You're answering to God."

It is precisely this us-versus-them attitude that is in direct contravention of Jesus' teachings (although it certainly does have more of an Old Testament flavor to it). The reason I left the active practice of religion is not that I feel there's anything inherently wrong with Christianity or religion in general, but because of the rank hypocrisy of so many of its adherents. One of the chief religious hypocrites today also happens to be the president of the United States. The brand of Christianity practiced by George W. Bush and his supporters is, to me, a gross perversion of the ideals I learned growing up.

Of all the injuries the Bush crime syndicate has inflicted upon the Constitution, from the elimination of habeas corpus to the attempt to remove the Office of the Vice President from the executive branch, the genesis has been their desire to merge government with religion, specifically with fundamentalist Christianity. Every action and every gross violation of laws and ethics can be traced back to the fundamentalist notion of good versus evil. But the question should not -- cannot -- be "what would Jesus do?" It must be "what should Americans do?"

Yet another crazy C-SPAN caller

Yes, it's time for another C-SPAN whacko transcript!

Former president Jimmy Carter appeared on C-SPAN's Book TV yesterday (here's the video; transcript begins at 55:30), and he took some calls. (Props to The Raw Story's coverage for bringing this to my attention.)

HOST: Aurora, Illinois.

CALLER: Yes, um, Mr. Carter, thank you for making me a Republican, um, because of your incompetence in handling the Iranians, with stagflation, and your cozying up with every dictator, thug, and Islamic terrorist there is. But more importantly, I find you to be vile, because of lack of heart, in part because you're an anti-Semite.

And let me explain why I think you're a bigot, a racist, and an anti-Semite.

HOST: I think, Caller, that the name-calling is, is enough. Thank you. [To Carter] But, these are the strong questions that are coming from people.

CARTER: I didn't quite understand her, but I think I can understand it. Can I comment?

HOST: Sure. Please do.

CARTER: Well, I think if you look at the history of my public career, the last thirty years, the preeminent goal that I've had in my mind is to bring peace to the people of Israel. And, um, I've worked on this without cessation during my adult life in politics. I was the only one, by the way, who ended the series of wars - four wars in twenty-five years - between Israel and Israel's major adversary, that is, Egypt ... yeah, Egypt. I sat down with them and negotiated a peace agreement in April of 1979, not a word of which has ever been violated. No one else has done that. Israel's never had a day of war with, or conflict with Egypt since.

And this book is not cover [sic], at all, anything inside Israel, as I pointed out earlier in this program. It's designed to cover the nation of the Palestinians. Palestine is the name of the book. And the next word in the title is peace. I hope for peace, for Israel and the Palestinians. And then the last two words is [sic] not apartheid. I don't want to see any persecution or separation of Israelis and their neighbors inside Palestine. And that's what is happening now.

So, I don't, you know, have to go any further. But for people to say that I'm against Israel when the book doesn't mention anything [against] Israel, or that I'm against - or that I'm an anti-Semite, is something that, obviously, I reject with, uh, with enthusiasm.

The grace with which President Carter handled this attack is testament to his character. Would that a certain current occupant of the White House had half as much tact and aplomb.