| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"MrPepper11" |
| Date: |
17 Oct 2004 11:03:21 AM |
| Object: |
George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
"We're an empire now." - George W. Bush
"It's Sweden that has no army." - George W. Bush
"I'm going to be real positive, while I keep my foot on John Kerry's
throat." - George W. Bush
New York Times Magazine / October 17, 2004
Without a Doubt
By RON SUSKIND
Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a
treasury official for the first President Bush, told me recently that
"if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party
starting on Nov. 3." The nature of that conflict, as Bartlett sees it?
Essentially, the same as the one raging across much of the world: a
battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true
believers, reason and religion.
"Just in the past few months," Bartlett said, "I think a light has
gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this
instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic
idea of what he thinks God has told him to do." Bartlett, a
53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who
has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about
Bush's governance, went on to say: "This is why George W. Bush is so
clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He
believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that
they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them,
because he's just like them...
"This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with
inconvenient facts," Bartlett went on to say. "He truly believes he's
on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for
analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which
there is no empirical evidence." Bartlett paused, then said, "But you
can't run the world on faith."
Forty democratic senators were gathered for a lunch in March just off
the Senate floor. I was there as a guest speaker. Joe Biden was
telling a story, a story about the president. "I was in the Oval
Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad," he began, "and I was
telling the president of my many concerns" -- concerns about growing
problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the
disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields.
Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the
United States was on the right course and that all was well. "'Mr.
President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you
don't know the facts?'"
Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's
shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts."
Biden paused and shook his head, recalling it all as the room grew
quiet. "I said, 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough!'"
The democrat Biden and the Republican Bartlett are trying to make
sense of the same thing -- a president who has been an extraordinary
blend of forcefulness and inscrutability, opacity and action.
But lately, words and deeds are beginning to connect.
The Delaware senator was, in fact, hearing what Bush's top deputies --
from cabinet members like Paul O'Neill, Christine Todd Whitman and
Colin Powell to generals fighting in Iraq -- have been told for years
when they requested explanations for many of the president's
decisions, policies that often seemed to collide with accepted facts.
The president would say that he relied on his "gut" or his "instinct"
to guide the ship of state, and then he "prayed over it." The old pro
Bartlett, a deliberative, fact-based wonk, is finally hearing a tune
that has been hummed quietly by evangelicals (so as not to trouble the
secular) for years as they gazed upon President George W. Bush. This
evangelical group -- the core of the energetic "base" that may well
usher Bush to victory -- believes that their leader is a messenger
from God. And in the first presidential debate, many Americans heard
the discursive John Kerry succinctly raise, for the first time, the
issue of Bush's certainty -- the issue being, as Kerry put it, that
"you can be certain and be wrong."
What underlies Bush's certainty? And can it be assessed in the
temporal realm of informed consent?
All of this -- the "gut" and "instincts," the certainty and
religiosity -connects to a single word, "faith," and faith asserts its
hold ever more on debates in this country and abroad. That a deep
Christian faith illuminated the personal journey of George W. Bush is
common knowledge. But faith has also shaped his presidency in
profound, nonreligious ways. The president has demanded unquestioning
faith from his followers, his staff, his senior aides and his kindred
in the Republican Party. Once he makes a decision -- often swiftly,
based on a creed or moral position -- he expects complete faith in its
rightness.
The disdainful smirks and grimaces that many viewers were surprised to
see in the first presidential debate are familiar expressions to those
in the administration or in Congress who have simply asked the
president to explain his positions. Since 9/11, those requests have
grown scarce; Bush's intolerance of doubters has, if anything,
increased, and few dare to question him now. A writ of infallibility
-- a premise beneath the powerful Bushian certainty that has, in many
ways, moved mountains -- is not just for public consumption: it has
guided the inner life of the White House. As Whitman told me on the
day in May 2003 that she announced her resignation as administrator of
the Environmental Protection Agency: "In meetings, I'd ask if there
were any facts to support our case. And for that, I was accused of
disloyalty!" (Whitman, whose faith in Bush has since been renewed,
denies making these remarks and is now a leader of the president's
re-election effort in New Jersey.)
The nation's founders, smarting still from the punitive pieties of
Europe's state religions, were adamant about erecting a wall between
organized religion and political authority. But suddenly, that seems
like a long time ago. George W. Bush -- both captive and creator of
this moment -- has steadily, inexorably, changed the office itself. He
has created the faith-based presidency.
The faith-based presidency is a with-us-or-against-us model that has
been enormously effective at, among other things, keeping the workings
and temperament of the Bush White House a kind of state secret. The
dome of silence cracked a bit in the late winter and spring, with
revelations from the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke and
also, in my book, from the former Bush treasury secretary Paul
O'Neill. When I quoted O'Neill saying that Bush was like "a blind man
in a room full of deaf people," this did not endear me to the White
House. But my phone did begin to ring, with Democrats and Republicans
calling with similar impressions and anecdotes about Bush's faith and
certainty. These are among the sources I relied upon for this article.
Few were willing to talk on the record. Some were willing to talk
because they said they thought George W. Bush might lose; others, out
of fear of what might transpire if he wins. In either case, there
seems to be a growing silence fatigue -- public servants, some with
vast experience, who feel they have spent years being treated like
Victorian-era children, seen but not heard, and are tired of it. But
silence still reigns in the highest reaches of the White House. After
many requests, Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director,
said in a letter that the president and those around him would not be
cooperating with this article in any way.
Some officials, elected or otherwise, with whom I have spoken with
left meetings in the Oval Office concerned that the president was
struggling with the demands of the job. Others focused on Bush's
substantial interpersonal gifts as a compensation for his perceived
lack of broader capabilities. Still others, like Senator Carl Levin of
Michigan, a Democrat, are worried about something other than his
native intelligence. "He's plenty smart enough to do the job," Levin
said. "It's his lack of curiosity about complex issues which troubles
me." But more than anything else, I heard expressions of awe at the
president's preternatural certainty and wonderment about its source.
There is one story about Bush's particular brand of certainty I am
able to piece together and tell for the record.
In the Oval Office in December 2002, the president met with a few
ranking senators and members of the House, both Republicans and
Democrats. In those days, there were high hopes that the United
States-sponsored "road map" for the Israelis and Palestinians would be
a pathway to peace, and the discussion that wintry day was, in part,
about countries providing peacekeeping forces in the region. The
problem, everyone agreed, was that a number of European countries,
like France and Germany, had armies that were not trusted by either
the Israelis or Palestinians. One congressman -- the Hungarian-born
Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor
in Congress -- mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were viewed
more positively. Lantos went on to describe for the president how the
Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small
peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a
well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him
appraisingly, several people in the room recall.
"I don't know why you're talking about Sweden," Bush said. "They're
the neutral one. They don't have an army."
Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: "Mr.
President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the
ones that are historically neutral, without an army." Then Lantos
mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough
national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.
Bush held to his view. "No, no, it's Sweden that has no army."
The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.
A few weeks later, members of Congress and their spouses gathered with
administration officials and other dignitaries for the White House
Christmas party. The president saw Lantos and grabbed him by the
shoulder. "You were right," he said, with bonhomie. "Sweden does have
an army."
This story was told to me by one of the senators in the Oval Office
that December day, Joe Biden. Lantos, a liberal Democrat, would not
comment about it. In general, people who meet with Bush will not
discuss their encounters. (Lantos, through a spokesman, says it is a
longstanding policy of his not to discuss Oval Office meetings.)
This is one key feature of the faith-based presidency: open dialogue,
based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value. It may, in
fact, create doubt, which undercuts faith. It could result in a loss
of confidence in the decision-maker and, just as important, by the
decision-maker. Nothing could be more vital, whether staying on
message with the voters or the terrorists or a California congressman
in a meeting about one of the world's most nagging problems. As Bush
himself has said any number of times on the campaign trail, "By
remaining resolute and firm and strong, this world will be peaceful."
He didn't always talk this way. A precious glimpse of Bush, just as he
was ascending to the presidency, comes from Jim Wallis, a man with the
added advantage of having deep acuity about the struggles between fact
and faith. Wallis, an evangelical pastor who for 30 years has run the
Sojourners -- a progressive organization of advocates for social
justice -- was asked during the transition to help pull together a
diverse group of members of the clergy to talk about faith and poverty
with the new president-elect.
In December 2000, Bush sat in the classroom of a Baptist church in
Austin, Tex., with 30 or so clergy members and asked, "How do I speak
to the soul of the nation?" He listened as each guest articulated a
vision of what might be. The afternoon hours passed. No one wanted to
leave. People rose from their chairs and wandered the room, huddling
in groups, conversing passionately. In one cluster, Bush and Wallis
talked of their journeys.
"I've never lived around poor people," Wallis remembers Bush saying.
"I don't know what they think. I really don't know what they think.
I'm a white Republican guy who doesn't get it. How do I get it?"
Wallis recalls replying, "You need to listen to the poor and those who
live and work with poor people."
Bush called over his speechwriter, Michael Gerson, and said, "I want
you to hear this." A month later, an almost identical line -- "many in
our country do not know the pain of poverty, but we can listen to
those who do" -- ended up in the inaugural address.
That was an earlier Bush, one rather more open and conversant,
matching his impulsiveness with a can-do attitude and seemingly
unafraid of engaging with a diverse group. The president has an array
of interpersonal gifts that fit well with this fearlessness -- a
headlong, unalloyed quality, best suited to ranging among different
types of people, searching for the outlines of what will take shape as
principles.
Yet this strong suit, an improvisational gift, has long been forced to
wrestle with its "left brain" opposite -- a struggle, across 30 years,
with the critical and analytical skills so prized in America's
professional class. In terms of intellectual faculties, that has been
the ongoing battle for this talented man, first visible during the
lackluster years at Yale and five years of drift through his 20's -- a
time when peers were busy building credentials in law, business or
medicine.
Biden, who early on became disenchanted with Bush's grasp of
foreign-policy issues and is among John Kerry's closest Senate
friends, has spent a lot of time trying to size up the president.
"Most successful people are good at identifying, very early, their
strengths and weaknesses, at knowing themselves," he told me not long
ago. "For most of us average Joes, that meant we've relied on
strengths but had to work on our weakness -- to lift them to adequacy
-- otherwise they might bring us down. I don't think the president
really had to do that, because he always had someone there -- his
family or friends -- to bail him out. I don't think, on balance, that
has served him well for the moment he's in now as president. He never
seems to have worked on his weaknesses."
Bush has been called the C.E.O. president, but that's just a catch
phrase -- he never ran anything of consequence in the private sector.
The M.B.A. president would be more accurate: he did, after all,
graduate from Harvard Business School. And some who have worked under
him in the White House and know about business have spotted a strange
business-school time warp. It's as if a 1975 graduate from H.B.S. --
one who had little chance to season theory with practice during the
past few decades of change in corporate America -- has simply been
dropped into the most challenging management job in the world.
One aspect of the H.B.S. method, with its emphasis on problems of
actual corporations, is sometimes referred to as the "case cracker"
problem. The case studies are static, generally a snapshot of a
troubled company, frozen in time; the various "solutions" students
proffer, and then defend in class against tough questioning, tend to
have very short shelf lives. They promote rigidity, inappropriate
surety. This is something H.B.S. graduates, most of whom land at large
or midsize firms, learn in their first few years in business. They
discover, often to their surprise, that the world is dynamic, it flows
and changes, often for no good reason. The key is flexibility, rather
than sticking to your guns in a debate, and constant reassessment of
shifting realities. In short, thoughtful second-guessing.
George W. Bush, who went off to Texas to be an oil wildcatter, never
had a chance to learn these lessons about the power of nuanced,
fact-based analysis. The small oil companies he ran tended to lose
money; much of their value was as tax shelters. (The investors were
often friends of his father's.) Later, with the Texas Rangers baseball
team, he would act as an able front man but never really as a boss.
Instead of learning the limitations of his Harvard training, what
George W. Bush learned instead during these fitful years were lessons
about faith and its particular efficacy. It was in 1985, around the
time of his 39th birthday, George W. Bush says, that his life took a
sharp turn toward salvation. At that point he was drinking, his
marriage was on the rocks, his career was listless. Several accounts
have emerged from those close to Bush about a faith "intervention" of
sorts at the Kennebunkport family compound that year. Details vary,
but here's the gist of what I understand took place. George W., drunk
at a party, crudely insulted a friend of his mother's. George senior
and Barbara blew up. Words were exchanged along the lines of something
having to be done. George senior, then the vice president, dialed up
his friend, Billy Graham, who came to the compound and spent several
days with George W. in probing exchanges and walks on the beach.
George W. was soon born again. He stopped drinking, attended Bible
study and wrestled with issues of fervent faith. A man who was lost
was saved.
His marriage may have been repaired by the power of faith, but faith
was clearly having little impact on his broken career. Faith heals the
heart and the spirit, but it doesn't do much for analytical skills. In
1990, a few years after receiving salvation, Bush was still bumping
along. Much is apparent from one of the few instances of disinterested
testimony to come from this period. It is the voice of David
Rubenstein, managing director and cofounder of the Carlyle Group, the
Washington-based investment firm that is one of the town's most
powerful institutions and a longtime business home for the president's
father. In 1989, the catering division of Marriott was taken private
and established as Caterair by a group of Carlyle investors. Several
old-guard Republicans, including the former Nixon aide Fred Malek,
were involved.
Rubenstein described that time to a convention of pension managers in
Los Angeles last year, recalling that Malek approached him and said:
"There is a guy who would like to be on the board. He's kind of down
on his luck a bit. Needs a job.... Needs some board positions." Though
Rubenstein didn't think George W. Bush, then in his mid-40's, "added
much value," he put him on the Caterair board. "Came to all the
meetings," Rubenstein told the conventioneers. "Told a lot of jokes.
Not that many clean ones. And after a while I kind of said to him,
after about three years: 'You know, I'm not sure this is really for
you. Maybe you should do something else. Because I don't think you're
adding that much value to the board. You don't know that much about
the company.' He said: 'Well, I think I'm getting out of this business
anyway. And I don't really like it that much. So I'm probably going to
resign from the board.' And I said thanks. Didn't think I'd ever see
him again."
Bush would soon officially resign from Caterair's board. Around this
time, Karl Rove set up meetings to discuss Bush's possible candidacy
for the governorship of Texas. Six years after that, he was elected
leader of the free world and began "case cracking" on a dizzying array
of subjects, proffering his various solutions, in both foreign and
domestic affairs. But the pointed "defend your position" queries -- so
central to the H.B.S. method and rigorous analysis of all kinds --
were infrequent. Questioning a regional supervisor or V.P. for
planning is one thing. Questioning the president of the United States
is another.
Still, some couldn't resist. As I reported in "The Price of Loyalty,"
at the Bush administration's first National Security Council meeting,
Bush asked if anyone had ever met Ariel Sharon. Some were uncertain if
it was a joke. It wasn't: Bush launched into a riff about briefly
meeting Sharon two years before, how he wouldn't "go by past
reputations when it comes to Sharon.... I'm going to take him at face
value," and how the United States should pull out of the Arab-Israeli
conflict because "I don't see much we can do over there at this
point." Colin Powell, for one, seemed startled. This would reverse 30
years of policy -- since the Nixon administration -- of American
engagement. Such a move would unleash Sharon, Powell countered, and
tear the delicate fabric of the Mideast in ways that might be
irreparable. Bush brushed aside Powell's concerns impatiently.
"Sometimes a show of force by one side can really clarify things."
Such challenges -- from either Powell or his opposite number as the
top official in domestic policy, Paul O'Neill -- were trials that Bush
had less and less patience for as the months passed. He made that
clear to his top lieutenants. Gradually, Bush lost what Richard Perle,
who would later head a largely private-sector group under Bush called
the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, had described as his open
posture during foreign-policy tutorials prior to the 2000 campaign.
("He had the confidence to ask questions that revealed he didn't know
very much," Perle said.) By midyear 2001, a stand-and-deliver rhythm
was established. Meetings, large and small, started to take on a
scripted quality. Even then, the circle around Bush was tightening.
Top officials, from cabinet members on down, were often told when they
would speak in Bush's presence, for how long and on what topic. The
president would listen without betraying any reaction. Sometimes there
would be cross-discussions -- Powell and Rumsfeld, for instance,
briefly parrying on an issue -- but the president would rarely prod
anyone with direct, informed questions.
Each administration, over the course of a term, is steadily shaped by
its president, by his character, personality and priorities. It is a
process that unfolds on many levels. There are, of course, a chief
executive's policies, which are executed by a staff and attending
bureaucracies. But a few months along, officials, top to bottom, will
also start to adopt the boss's phraseology, his presumptions, his
rhythms. If a president fishes, people buy poles; if he expresses
displeasure, aides get busy finding evidence to support the judgment.
A staff channels the leader.
A cluster of particularly vivid qualities was shaping George W. Bush's
White House through the summer of 2001: a disdain for contemplation or
deliberation, an embrace of decisiveness, a retreat from empiricism, a
sometimes bullying impatience with doubters and even friendly
questioners. Already Bush was saying, Have faith in me and my
decisions, and you'll be rewarded. All through the White House, people
were channeling the boss. He didn't second-guess himself; why should
they?
Considering the trials that were soon to arrive, it is easy to
overlook what a difficult time this must have been for George W. Bush.
For nearly three decades, he had sat in classrooms, and then at
mahogany tables in corporate suites, with little to contribute. Then,
as governor of Texas, he was graced with a pliable enough bipartisan
Legislature, and the Legislature is where the real work in that
state's governance gets done. The Texas Legislature's tension of
opposites offered the structure of point and counterpoint, which Bush
could navigate effectively with his strong, improvisational skills.
But the mahogany tables were now in the Situation Room and in the
large conference room adjacent to the Oval Office. He guided a ruling
party. Every issue that entered that rarefied sanctum required a
complex decision, demanding focus, thoroughness and analytical
potency.
For the president, as Biden said, to be acutely aware of his
weaknesses -- and to have to worry about revealing uncertainty or need
or confusion, even to senior officials -- must have presented an
untenable bind. By summer's end that first year, Vice President *****
Cheney had stopped talking in meetings he attended with Bush. They
would talk privately, or at their weekly lunch. The president was
spending a lot of time outside the White House, often at the ranch, in
the presence of only the most trustworthy confidants. The circle
around Bush is the tightest around any president in the modern era,
and "it's both exclusive and exclusionary," Christopher DeMuth,
president of the American Enterprise Institute, the neoconservative
policy group, told me. "It's a too tightly managed decision-making
process. When they make decisions, a very small number of people are
in the room, and it has a certain effect of constricting the range of
alternatives being offered."
On Sept. 11, 2001, the country watched intently to see if and how Bush
would lead. After a couple of days in which he seemed shaky and
uncertain, he emerged, and the moment he began to lead -- standing on
the World Trade Center's rubble with a bullhorn -- for much of
America, any lingering doubts about his abilities vanished. No one
could afford doubt, not then. They wanted action, and George W. Bush
was ready, having never felt the reasonable hesitations that slowed
more deliberative men, and many presidents, including his father.
Within a few days of the attacks, Bush decided on the invasion of
Afghanistan and was barking orders. His speech to the joint session of
Congress on Sept. 20 will most likely be the greatest of his
presidency. He prayed for God's help. And many Americans, of all
faiths, prayed with him -- or for him. It was simple and
nondenominational: a prayer that he'd be up to this moment, so that he
-- and, by extension, we as a country -- would triumph in that dark
hour.
This is where the faith-based presidency truly takes shape. Faith,
which for months had been coloring the decision-making process and a
host of political tactics -- think of his address to the nation on
stem-cell research -- now began to guide events. It was the most
natural ascension: George W. Bush turning to faith in his darkest
moment and discovering a wellspring of power and confidence.
Of course, the mandates of sound, sober analysis didn't vanish. They
never do. Ask any entrepreneur with a blazing idea when, a few years
along, the first debt payments start coming due. Or the C.E.O.,
certain that a high stock price affirms his sweeping vision, until
that neglected, flagging division cripples the company. There's a
startled look -- how'd that happen? In this case, the challenge of
mobilizing the various agencies of the United States government and
making certain that agreed-upon goals become demonstrable outcomes
grew exponentially.
Looking back at the months directly following 9/11, virtually every
leading military analyst seems to believe that rather than using
Afghan proxies, we should have used more American troops, deployed
more quickly, to pursue Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora.
Many have also been critical of the president's handling of Saudi
Arabia, home to 15 of the 19 hijackers; despite Bush's setting goals
in the so-called "financial war on terror," the Saudis failed to
cooperate with American officials in hunting for the financial sources
of terror. Still, the nation wanted bold action and was delighted to
get it. Bush's approval rating approached 90 percent. Meanwhile, the
executive's balance between analysis and resolution, between
contemplation and action, was being tipped by the pull of righteous
faith.
It was during a press conference on Sept. 16, in response to a
question about homeland security efforts infringing on civil rights,
that Bush first used the telltale word "crusade" in public. "This is a
new kind of -- a new kind of evil," he said. "And we understand. And
the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this
war on terrorism is going to take a while."
Muslims around the world were incensed. Two days later, Ari Fleischer
tried to perform damage control. "I think what the president was
saying was -- had no intended consequences for anybody, Muslim or
otherwise, other than to say that this is a broad cause that he is
calling on America and the nations around the world to join." As to
"any connotations that would upset any of our partners, or anybody
else in the world, the president would regret if anything like that
was conveyed."
A few months later, on Feb. 1, 2002, Jim Wallis of the Sojourners
stood in the Roosevelt Room for the introduction of Jim Towey as head
of the president's faith-based and community initiative. John DiIulio,
the original head, had left the job feeling that the initiative was
not about "compassionate conservatism," as originally promised, but
rather a political giveaway to the Christian right, a way to
consolidate and energize that part of the base.
Moments after the ceremony, Bush saw Wallis. He bounded over and
grabbed the cheeks of his face, one in each hand, and squeezed. "Jim,
how ya doin', how ya doin'!" he exclaimed. Wallis was taken aback.
Bush excitedly said that his massage therapist had given him Wallis's
book, "Faith Works." His joy at seeing Wallis, as Wallis and others
remember it, was palpable -- a president, wrestling with faith and its
role at a time of peril, seeing that rare bird: an independent
counselor. Wallis recalls telling Bush he was doing fine, "'but in the
State of the Union address a few days before, you said that unless we
devote all our energies, our focus, our resources on this war on
terrorism, we're going to lose.' I said, 'Mr. President, if we don't
devote our energy, our focus and our time on also overcoming global
poverty and desperation, we will lose not only the war on poverty, but
we'll lose the war on terrorism.'"
Bush replied that that was why America needed the leadership of Wallis
and other members of the clergy.
"No, Mr. President," Wallis says he told Bush, "We need your
leadership on this question, and all of us will then commit to support
you. Unless we drain the swamp of injustice in which the mosquitoes of
terrorism breed, we'll never defeat the threat of terrorism."
Bush looked quizzically at the minister, Wallis recalls. They never
spoke again after that.
"When I was first with Bush in Austin, what I saw was a self-help
Methodist, very open, seeking," Wallis says now. "What I started to
see at this point was the man that would emerge over the next year --
a messianic American Calvinist. He doesn't want to hear from anyone
who doubts him."
But with a country crying out for intrepid leadership, does a
president have time to entertain doubters? In a speech in Alaska two
weeks later, Bush again referred to the war on terror as a "crusade."
In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that
the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications
director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush.
He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me
something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I
now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the
reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that
solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I
nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and
empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works
anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we
create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality --
judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new
realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort
out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to
just study what we do."
Who besides guys like me are part of the reality-based community? Many
of the other elected officials in Washington, it would seem. A group
of Democratic and Republican members of Congress were called in to
discuss Iraq sometime before the October 2002 vote authorizing Bush to
move forward. A Republican senator recently told Time Magazine that
the president walked in and said: "Look, I want your vote. I'm not
going to debate it with you." When one of the senators began to ask a
question, Bush snapped, "Look, I'm not going to debate it with you."
The 9/11 commission did not directly address the question of whether
Bush exerted influence over the intelligence community about the
existence of weapons of mass destruction. That question will be
investigated after the election, but if no tangible evidence of undue
pressure is found, few officials or alumni of the administration whom
I spoke to are likely to be surprised. "If you operate in a certain
way -- by saying this is how I want to justify what I've already
decided to do, and I don't care how you pull it off -- you guarantee
that you'll get faulty, one-sided information," Paul O'Neill, who was
asked to resign his post of treasury secretary in December 2002, said
when we had dinner a few weeks ago. "You don't have to issue an edict,
or twist arms, or be overt."
In a way, the president got what he wanted: a National Intelligence
Estimate on W.M.D. that creatively marshaled a few thin facts, and
then Colin Powell putting his credibility on the line at the United
Nations in a show of faith. That was enough for George W. Bush to
press forward and invade Iraq. As he told his quasi-memoirist, Bob
Woodward, in "Plan of Attack": "Going into this period, I was praying
for strength to do the Lord's will.... I'm surely not going to justify
the war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case, I
pray to be as good a messenger of his will as possible."
Machiavelli's oft-cited line about the adequacy of the perception of
power prompts a question. Is the appearance of confidence as important
as its possession? Can confidence -- true confidence -- be willed? Or
must it be earned?
George W. Bush, clearly, is one of history's great confidence men.
That is not meant in the huckster's sense, though many critics claim
that on the war in Iraq, the economy and a few other matters he has
engaged in some manner of bait-and-switch. No, I mean it in the sense
that he's a believer in the power of confidence. At a time when
constituents are uneasy and enemies are probing for weaknesses, he
clearly feels that unflinching confidence has an almost mystical
power. It can all but create reality.
Whether you can run the world on faith, it's clear you can run one
hell of a campaign on it.
George W. Bush and his team have constructed a high-performance
electoral engine. The soul of this new machine is the support of
millions of likely voters, who judge his worth based on intangibles --
character, certainty, fortitude and godliness -- rather than on what
he says or does. The deeper the darkness, the brighter this filament
of faith glows, a faith in the president and the just God who affirms
him.
The leader of the free world is clearly comfortable with this calculus
and artfully encourages it. In the series of televised, carefully
choreographed "Ask President Bush" events with supporters around the
country, sessions filled with prayers and blessings, one questioner
recently summed up the feelings of so many Christian conservatives,
the core of the Bush army. "I've voted Republican from the very first
time I could vote," said Gary Walby, a retired jeweler from Destin,
Fla., as he stood before the president in a crowded college gym. "And
I also want to say this is the very first time that I have felt that
God was in the White House." Bush simply said "thank you" as a wave of
raucous applause rose from the assembled.
Every few months, a report surfaces of the president using strikingly
Messianic language, only to be dismissed by the White House. Three
months ago, for instance, in a private meeting with Amish farmers in
Lancaster County, Pa., Bush was reported to have said, "I trust God
speaks through me." In this ongoing game of winks and nods, a White
House spokesman denied the president had specifically spoken those
words, but noted that "his faith helps him in his service to people."
A recent Gallup Poll noted that 42 percent of Americans identify
themselves as evangelical or "born again." While this group leans
Republican, it includes black urban churches and is far from
monolithic. But Bush clearly draws his most ardent supporters and
tireless workers from this group, many from a healthy subset of
approximately four million evangelicals who didn't vote in 2000 --
potential new arrivals to the voting booth who could tip a close
election or push a tight contest toward a rout.
This signaling system -- forceful, national, varied, yet clean of the
president's specific fingerprint -- carries enormous weight. Lincoln
Chafee, the moderate Republican senator from Rhode Island, has broken
with the president precisely over concerns about the nature of Bush's
certainty. "This issue," he says, of Bush's "announcing that 'I carry
the word of God' is the key to the election. The president wants to
signal to the base with that message, but in the swing states he does
not."
Come to the hustings on Labor Day and meet the base. In 2004, you know
a candidate by his base, and the Bush campaign is harnessing the might
of churches, with hordes of voters registering through
church-sponsored programs. Following the news of Bush on his national
tour in the week after the Republican convention, you could sense how
a faith-based president campaigns: on a surf of prayer and righteous
rage.
Righteous rage -- that's what Hardy Billington felt when he heard
about same-sex marriage possibly being made legal in Massachusetts.
"It made me upset and disgusted, things going on in Massachusetts,"
the 52-year-old from Poplar Bluff, Mo., told me. "I prayed, then I got
to work." Billington spent $830 in early July to put up a billboard on
the edge of town. It read: "I Support President Bush and the Men and
Women Fighting for Our Country. We Invite President Bush to Visit
Poplar Bluff." Soon Billington and his friend David Hahn, a
fundamentalist preacher, started a petition drive. They gathered
10,000 signatures. That fact eventually reached the White House
scheduling office.
By late afternoon on a cloudy Labor Day, with a crowd of more than
20,000 assembled in a public park, Billington stepped to the podium.
"The largest group I ever talked to I think was seven people, and I'm
not much of a talker," Billington, a shy man with three kids and a
couple of dozen rental properties that he owns, told me several days
later. "I've never been so frightened."
But Billington said he "looked to God" and said what was in his heart.
"The United States is the greatest country in the world," he told the
rally. "President Bush is the greatest president I have ever known. I
love my president. I love my country. And more important, I love Jesus
Christ."
The crowd went wild, and they went wild again when the president
finally arrived and gave his stump speech. There were Bush's periodic
stumbles and gaffes, but for the followers of the faith-based
president, that was just fine. They got it -- and "it" was the faith.
And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002
by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now
runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by
challenging me. "You think he's an idiot, don't you?" I said, no, I
didn't. "No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the
East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let
me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by
folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who
don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times.
And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he
points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when
you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for
us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like
you!" In this instance, the final "you," of course, meant the entire
reality-based community.
The bond between Bush and his base is a bond of mutual support. He
supports them with his actions, doing his level best to stand firm on
wedge issues like abortion and same-sex marriage while he identifies
evil in the world, at home and abroad. They respond with fierce faith.
The power of this transaction is something that people, especially
those who are religious, tend to connect to their own lives. If you
have faith in someone, that person is filled like a vessel. Your faith
is the wind beneath his or her wings. That person may well rise to the
occasion and surprise you: I had faith in you, and my faith was
rewarded. Or, I know you've been struggling, and I need to pray
harder.
Bush's speech that day in Poplar Bluff finished with a mythic appeal:
"For all Americans, these years in our history will always stand
apart," he said. "You know, there are quiet times in the life of a
nation when little is expected of its leaders. This isn't one of those
times. This is a time that needs -- when we need firm resolve and
clear vision and a deep faith in the values that make us a great
nation."
The life of the nation and the life of Bush effortlessly merge -- his
fortitude, even in the face of doubters, is that of the nation; his
ordinariness, like theirs, is heroic; his resolve, to whatever end,
will turn the wheel of history.
Remember, this is consent, informed by the heart and by the spirit. In
the end, Bush doesn't have to say he's ordained by God. After a day of
speeches by Hardy Billington and others, it goes without saying.
"To me, I just believe God controls everything, and God uses the
president to keep evil down, to see the darkness and protect this
nation," Billington told me, voicing an idea shared by millions of
Bush supporters. "Other people will not protect us. God gives people
choices to make. God gave us this president to be the man to protect
the nation at this time."
But when the moment came in the V.I.P. tent to shake Bush's hand,
Billington remembered being reserved. "'I really thank God that you're
the president' was all I told him." Bush, he recalled, said, "Thank
you."
"He knew what I meant," Billington said. "I believe he's an instrument
of God, but I have to be careful about what I say, you know, in
public."
Is there anyone in America who feels that John Kerry is an instrument
of God?
"I'm going to be real positive, while I keep my foot on John Kerry's
throat," George W. Bush said last month at a confidential luncheon a
block away from the White House with a hundred or so of his most
ardent, longtime supporters, the so-called R.N.C. Regents. This was a
high-rolling crowd -- at one time or another, they had all given large
contributions to Bush or the Republican National Committee. Bush had
known many of them for years, and a number of them had visited him at
the ranch. It was a long way from Poplar Bluff.
The Bush these supporters heard was a triumphal Bush, actively
beginning to plan his second term. It is a second term, should it come
to pass, that will alter American life in many ways, if predictions
that Bush voiced at the luncheon come true.
He said emphatically that he expects the Republicans will gain seats
to expand their control of the House and the Senate. According to
notes provided to me, and according to several guests at the lunch who
agreed to speak about what they heard, he said that "Osama bin Laden
would like to overthrow the Saudis... then we're in trouble. Because
they have a weapon. They have the oil." He said that there will be an
opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice shortly after his
inauguration, and perhaps three more high-court vacancies during his
second term.
"Won't that be amazing?" said Peter Stent, a rancher and
conservationist who attended the luncheon. "Can you imagine? Four
appointments!"
After his remarks, Bush opened it up for questions, and someone asked
what he's going to do about energy policy with worldwide oil reserves
predicted to peak.
Bush said: "I'm going to push nuclear energy, drilling in Alaska and
clean coal. Some nuclear-fusion technologies are interesting." He
mentions energy from "processing corn."
"I'm going to bring all this up in the debate, and I'm going to push
it," he said, and then tried out a line. "Do you realize that ANWR
[the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge] is the size of South Carolina,
and where we want to drill is the size of the Columbia airport?"
The questions came from many directions -- respectful, but clearly
reality-based. About the deficits, he said he'd "spend whatever it
takes to protect our kids in Iraq," that "homeland security cost more
than I originally thought."
In response to a question, he talked about diversity, saying that
"hands down," he has the most diverse senior staff in terms of both
gender and race. He recalled a meeting with Chancellor Gerhard
Schroder of Germany. "You know, I'm sitting there with Schroder one
day with Colin and Condi. And I'm thinking: What's Schroder thinking?!
He's sitting here with two blacks and one's a woman."
But as the hour passed, Bush kept coming back to the thing most on his
mind: his second term.
"I'm going to come out strong after my swearing in," Bush said, "with
fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security."
The victories he expects in November, he said, will give us "two
years, at least, until the next midterm. We have to move quickly,
because after that I'll be quacking like a duck."
Joseph Gildenhorn, a top contributor who attended the luncheon and has
been invited to visit Bush at his ranch, said later: "I've never seen
the president so ebullient. He was so confident. He feels so strongly
he will win." Yet one part of Bush's 60-odd-minute free-form riff gave
Gildenhorn -- a board member of the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee and a former ambassador to Switzerland -- a moment's pause.
The president, listing priorities for his second term, placed near the
top of his agenda the expansion of federal support for faith-based
institutions. The president talked at length about giving the
initiative the full measure of his devotion and said that questions
about separation of church and state were not an issue.
Talk of the faith-based initiative, Gildenhorn said, makes him "a
little uneasy." Many conservative evangelicals "feel they have a
direct line from God," he said, and feel Bush is divinely chosen.
"I think he's religious, I think he's a born-again, I don't think,
though, that he feels that he's been ordained by God to serve the
country." Gildenhorn paused, then said, "But you know, I really
haven't discussed it with him."
A regent I spoke to later and who asked not to be identified told me:
"I'm happy he's certain of victory and that he's ready to burst forth
into his second term, but it all makes me a little nervous. There are
a lot of big things that he's planning to do domestically, and who
knows what countries we might invade or what might happen in Iraq. But
when it gets complex, he seems to turn to prayer or God rather than
digging in and thinking things through. What's that line? -- the
devil's in the details. If you don't go after that devil, he'll come
after you."
Bush grew into one of history's most forceful leaders, his admirers
will attest, by replacing hesitation and reasonable doubt with faith
and clarity. Many more will surely tap this high-voltage connection of
fervent faith and bold action. In politics, the saying goes, anything
that works must be repeated until it is replaced by something better.
The horizon seems clear of competitors.
Can the unfinished American experiment in self-governance --
sputtering on the watery fuel of illusion and assertion -- deal with
something as nuanced as the subtleties of one man's faith? What, after
all, is the nature of the particular conversation the president feels
he has with God -- a colloquy upon which the world now precariously
turns?
That very issue is what Jim Wallis wishes he could sit and talk about
with George W. Bush. That's impossible now, he says. He is no longer
invited to the White House.
"Faith can cut in so many ways," he said. "If you're penitent and not
triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us
reach for something higher than ourselves. That can be a powerful
thing, a thing that moves us beyond politics as usual, like Martin
Luther King did. But when it's designed to certify our righteousness
-- that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self-criticism aside.
There's no reflection.
"Where people often get lost is on this very point," he said after a
moment of thought. "Real faith, you see, leads us to deeper reflection
and not -- not ever -- to the thing we as humans so very much want."
And what is that?
"Easy certainty."
---------------------------
Ron Suskind was the senior national-affairs reporter for The Wall
Street Journal from 1993 to 2000. He is the author most recently of
"The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the
Education of Paul O'Neill."
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| User: "Dale" |
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| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
18 Oct 2004 12:38:01 AM |
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"MrPepper11" <MrPepper11@go.com> wrote in message
news:57cfd534.0410170803.785002b6@posting.google.com...
"We're an empire now." - George W. Bush
"It's Sweden that has no army." - George W. Bush
"I'm going to be real positive, while I keep my foot on John Kerry's
throat." - George W. Bush
New York Times Magazine / October 17, 2004
Without a Doubt
By RON SUSKIND
Very nice article, thanks for posting it. Now, if we could just squeeze the
essence of it into a soundbite...
It reminds me of something I found on a Yahoo message board
----
The problem not only with fundamentalist Christians but with Republicans in
general is not that they act on blind faith, without thinking. The problem
is that they are incorrigible doubters with an insatiable appetite for
Evidence. What they get off on is not Believing, but in having their beliefs
tested. That's why their conversations and their media are so completely
dominated by implacable bogeymen: marrying gays, liberals, the ACLU, Sean
Penn, Europeans and so on. Their faith both in God and in their political
convictions is too weak to survive without an unceasing string of real and
imaginary confrontations with those people -- and for those confrontations,
they are constantly assembling evidence and facts to make their case.
But here's the twist. They are not looking for facts with which to defeat
opponents. They are looking for facts that ensure them an ever-expanding
roster of opponents. They can be correct facts, incorrect facts, irrelevant
facts, it doesn't matter. The point is not to win the argument, the point is
to make sure the argument never stops. Permanent war isn't a policy imposed
from above; it's an emotional imperative that rises from the bottom. In a
way, it actually helps if the fact is dubious or untrue (like the Swift-boat
business), because that guarantees an argument. You're arguing the
particulars, where you're right, while they're arguing the underlying
generalities, where they are.
Once you grasp this fact, you're a long way to understanding what the
Hannitys and Limbaughs figured out long ago: These people will swallow
anything you feed them, so long as it leaves them with a demon to wrestle
with in their dreams.
----
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| User: "Not-easily-duped" |
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| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
17 Oct 2004 06:14:56 PM |
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(MrPepper11) wrote in message
)
This is one key feature of the faith-based presidency: open dialogue,
based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value. It may, in
fact, create doubt, which undercuts faith. It could result in a loss
of confidence in the decision-maker and, just as important, by the
decision-maker. Nothing could be more vital, whether staying on
message with the voters or the terrorists or a California congressman
in a meeting about one of the world's most nagging problems. As Bush
himself has said any number of times on the campaign trail, "By
remaining resolute and firm and strong, this world will be peaceful."
He didn't always talk this way. A precious glimpse of Bush, just as he
was ascending to the presidency, comes from Jim Wallis, a man with the
added advantage of having deep acuity about the struggles between fact
and faith.
There is no dichotomy between Fact and Faith. Why it always has to be
"this versus that" and not both at the same time?
***** you all liberals liars and assholes....
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| User: "Bring it on!" |
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| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
19 Oct 2004 02:34:34 PM |
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(Not-easily-duped) wrote:
There is no dichotomy between Fact and Faith. Why it always has to be
"this versus that" and not both at the same time?
That is how the binary world of Bush operates..
Good vs. Evil
With us or Against us
***** you all liberals liars and assholes....
Ahh...cry, "librul, librul, librul."
The nonsensical non-answer on every issue.
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| User: "Danzig" |
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| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
21 Oct 2004 01:07:43 PM |
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Bring it on! wrote:
Codebreaker@bigsecret.com (Not-easily-duped) wrote:
There is no dichotomy between Fact and Faith. Why it always has to be
"this versus that" and not both at the same time?
That is how the binary world of Bush operates..
Good vs. Evil
With us or Against us
***** you all liberals liars and assholes....
Ahh...cry, "librul, librul, librul."
The nonsensical non-answer on every issue.
Us and them..the same tired mentality. Everyone who does not believe the
exact same things you do is not WRONG, simply different. Once you put a
handy LABEL on them, you expose how truly shallow your thinking is.
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| User: "Doorman" |
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| Title: The vile spewers of mindless blather thread |
18 Oct 2004 07:35:09 AM |
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If you are a fellow American patriot and lover of the First Amendment, then
by these presents greetings. It is good that you seek rational and
democratic discussion of the great and urgent issues facing our nation.
Unfortunately, I think you've come to the wrong place. See the bottom of
this post for additional evidence.
Especially if you remember the old days of thoughtful discussion in the
newsgroups, this triumph of noise over signal may sadden you. Hyde Park of
the world and cheap advertising are all that remain.
However, there are many alternatives. For example, there are many more
"refined" forums on the Web where polite discussions can be found. Even
better if you can build bridges to real people in the physical world. For
example, you could treat a rational RINO to a movie--like Fahrenheit 9/11.
Lots of good books still being published. (Michael Moore has two new ones.)
You could write a letter for your local paper--you'll reach more "normal"
people and probably have more impact than here. Or you could donate to the
political campaigns--I confess I've already made seven donations. Just
remember that big money is harming democracy, that BushCo has more money
than anyone, and that if money alone decides elections then the American
republic is already dead.
Last, but MOST important: VOTE! Your nation needs you NOW!
On the other hand, if you are a Bushevik troll, then in the immortal
floor-of-the-Senate words of the unloved ***** Cheney: "Go f*ck yourself.
When selecting "featured" posts for this mindless blather thread, the
following factors are considered:
1. Ad hominem evasion of real issues.
2. Stone-headed fanaticism.
3. Generalized hate speech, such as racism.
4. Spinning diversion or trivialization of issues.
5. Blatant lies or hypocrisy.
6. Overt trolling, such as extensive cross-posting.
7. Incomprehensible writing.
8. Vicious negative emotionalism, especially amusing personal attacks.
[For the purposes of this thread, the freshest original parts are usually
sufficient, but use the last entry on the References: header line if you
want to see the full context.]
Not-easily-duped <Codebreaker@bigsecret.com> wrote:
<old stuff snip>
There is no dichotomy between Fact and Faith. Why it always has to
be "this versus that" and not both at the same time?
***** you all liberals liars and assholes....
[Like the fact of no WMD in Iraq? And such Christian kindness and charity.
I've frequently been surprised by the creativity of the reconstructionist
reinterpretations of the Bible.]
--
We don't know if 9/11 could have been stopped--but we do know Dubya
failed to stop it. That's the FACT.
You want steady leadership for disastrous change?
Attack, lie, spin. Dubya's REAL trifecta.
Trolls fed to "The vile spewers of mindless blather thread".
('Doorman' is a role-based pen name of Shannon Jacobs, copyright
2004.)
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| User: "Nivlem" |
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| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
18 Oct 2004 02:41:50 AM |
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Not-easily-duped wrote:
MrPepper11@go.com (MrPepper11) wrote in message
)
This is one key feature of the faith-based presidency: open dialogue,
based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value. It may, in
fact, create doubt, which undercuts faith. It could result in a loss
of confidence in the decision-maker and, just as important, by the
decision-maker. Nothing could be more vital, whether staying on
message with the voters or the terrorists or a California congressman
in a meeting about one of the world's most nagging problems. As Bush
himself has said any number of times on the campaign trail, "By
remaining resolute and firm and strong, this world will be peaceful."
He didn't always talk this way. A precious glimpse of Bush, just as he
was ascending to the presidency, comes from Jim Wallis, a man with the
added advantage of having deep acuity about the struggles between fact
and faith.
There is no dichotomy between Fact and Faith. Why it always has to be
"this versus that" and not both at the same time?
***** you all liberals liars and assholes....
Well, that's the problem, id'n it? There is a dichotomy often enough.
Let's do the tired old evolution thing again, shall we. Biology,
geology, the fossil record say one thing. Your Bible says something
else if interpreted litertally by ignoramuses. So what do you guys
want to do? Kill science! Oh, yes. A return to the dark ages will do
us all a world of good. The black-and-white, good vs. evil attitude
our various sorts of Taliban factions bring to whatever the debate of
the moment tends to dictate its tone. I'm perfectly happy to let you
believe whatever you want, no matter how objectively silly. You just
don't get to stuff it down my throat. Btw, I thought you Christian
guys weren't supposed to use the word "*****"? What happened there?
.
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| User: "Not-easily-duped" |
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| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
18 Oct 2004 05:19:32 PM |
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Nivlem <mlml@svn.net> wrote in message news:<417373BE.9040201@svn.net>...
Not-easily-duped wrote:
MrPepper11@go.com (MrPepper11) wrote in message
)
This is one key feature of the faith-based presidency: open dialogue,
based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value. It may, in
fact, create doubt, which undercuts faith. It could result in a loss
of confidence in the decision-maker and, just as important, by the
decision-maker. Nothing could be more vital, whether staying on
message with the voters or the terrorists or a California congressman
in a meeting about one of the world's most nagging problems. As Bush
himself has said any number of times on the campaign trail, "By
remaining resolute and firm and strong, this world will be peaceful."
He didn't always talk this way. A precious glimpse of Bush, just as he
was ascending to the presidency, comes from Jim Wallis, a man with the
added advantage of having deep acuity about the struggles between fact
and faith.
There is no dichotomy between Fact and Faith. Why it always has to be
"this versus that" and not both at the same time?
***** you all liberals liars and assholes....
Well, that's the problem, id'n it? There is a dichotomy often enough.
Let's do the tired old evolution thing again, shall we. Biology,
geology, the fossil record say one thing. Your Bible says something
else if interpreted litertally by ignoramuses. So what do you guys
You forget that Bible deals with Metaphysic. Science also is in the
hands of faillible humans. We don't despise Science, We shun
human ideologies that liars like you dressed up as Science.
Science is gift from our God.
want to do? Kill science! Oh, yes. A return to the dark ages will do
us all a world of good. The black-and-white, good vs. evil attitude
our various sorts of Taliban factions bring to whatever the debate of
the moment tends to dictate its tone. I'm perfectly happy to let you
believe whatever you want, no matter how objectively silly. You just
don't get to stuff it down my throat. Btw, I thought you Christian
guys weren't supposed to use the word "*****"? What happened there?
How did this monkey find out that "*****" was a bad word?
.
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| User: "Gringo" |
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| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
19 Oct 2004 02:13:11 AM |
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Not-easily-duped wrote:
Nivlem <mlml@svn.net> wrote in message news:<417373BE.9040201@svn.net>...
Not-easily-duped wrote:
MrPepper11@go.com (MrPepper11) wrote in message
)
This is one key feature of the faith-based presidency: open dialogue,
based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value. It may, in
fact, create doubt, which undercuts faith. It could result in a loss
of confidence in the decision-maker and, just as important, by the
decision-maker. Nothing could be more vital, whether staying on
message with the voters or the terrorists or a California congressman
in a meeting about one of the world's most nagging problems. As Bush
himself has said any number of times on the campaign trail, "By
remaining resolute and firm and strong, this world will be peaceful."
He didn't always talk this way. A precious glimpse of Bush, just as he
was ascending to the presidency, comes from Jim Wallis, a man with the
added advantage of having deep acuity about the struggles between fact
and faith.
There is no dichotomy between Fact and Faith. Why it always has to be
"this versus that" and not both at the same time?
***** you all liberals liars and assholes....
Well, that's the problem, id'n it? There is a dichotomy often enough.
Let's do the tired old evolution thing again, shall we. Biology,
geology, the fossil record say one thing. Your Bible says something
else if interpreted litertally by ignoramuses. So what do you guys
You forget that Bible deals with Metaphysic. Science also is in the
hands of faillible humans. We don't despise Science, We shun
human ideologies that liars like you dressed up as Science.
Science is gift from our God.
And in six short days, God created the heavens and the earth and adam
and eve. Adam and Eve, man and woman, possessors of filthy sexual
organs and the need to defecate in God's beautiful garden. Horrors!
Mankind, made in God's own image... imagine that. If so, then God has
a penis and he too likes *****. Golly, way to go God! Say, didn't
David "Jesus" Koresh use that line to get access to the wives and
minor children of his church members? Come to think of it, Rev. Jerry
Falwell and Rev. Pat Robertson and Pres. George W. Bush's friend Sun
Myung moonie uses the same technique to get females. They must be
junior gods, at least in their own minds.
want to do? Kill science! Oh, yes. A return to the dark ages will do
us all a world of good. The black-and-white, good vs. evil attitude
our various sorts of Taliban factions bring to whatever the debate of
the moment tends to dictate its tone. I'm perfectly happy to let you
believe whatever you want, no matter how objectively silly. You just
don't get to stuff it down my throat. Btw, I thought you Christian
guys weren't supposed to use the word "*****"? What happened there?
How did this monkey find out that "*****" was a bad word?
--
The message is that there are no knowns. There are things that we know
that we know. There are known unknowns, that is to say there are
things we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns
– things we do not know we don’t know. So when we do the best we can
and we pull all this information together, and we then say ‘well,
that’s basically what we see as the situation’, that is really only
the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year we discover a
few more of those unknown unknowns.”
---- Donald Rumsfeld, in a speech, December 3, 2003
.
|
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| User: "Not-easily-duped" |
|
| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
19 Oct 2004 03:32:58 PM |
|
|
Gringo <anonymous@nospam.com> wrote in message news:<b83dd.9890
A point was made in the BIBLE, it is sad you chose to miss it.
However If everything single detail were to be written down, the
world would not be able to carry all the books. You are an idiot.
And in six short days, God created the heavens and the earth and adam
and eve. Adam and Eve, man and woman, possessors of filthy sexual
organs and the need to defecate in God's beautiful garden. Horrors!
Mankind, made in God's own image... imagine that. If so, then God has
a penis and he too likes *****. Golly, way to go God! Say, didn't
David "Jesus" Koresh use that line to get access to the wives and
minor children of his church members? Come to think of it, Rev. Jerry
Falwell and Rev. Pat Robertson and Pres. George W. Bush's friend Sun
Myung moonie uses the same technique to get females. They must be
junior gods, at least in their own minds.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Danzig" |
|
| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
21 Oct 2004 01:08:31 PM |
|
|
Not-easily-duped wrote:
Gringo <anonymous@nospam.com> wrote in message news:<b83dd.9890
A point was made in the BIBLE, it is sad you chose to miss it.
However If everything single detail were to be written down, the
world would not be able to carry all the books. You are an idiot.
Not everyone takes THANT PARTICULAR BOOK as (pardon the pun) GOSPEL
.
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| User: "thomas p" |
|
| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
20 Oct 2004 02:19:17 PM |
|
|
On 19 Oct 2004 13:32:58 -0700,
(Not-easily-duped) wrote:
Gringo <anonymous@nospam.com> wrote in message news:<b83dd.9890
And in six short days, God created the heavens and the earth and adam
and eve. Adam and Eve, man and woman, possessors of filthy sexual
organs and the need to defecate in God's beautiful garden. Horrors!
Mankind, made in God's own image... imagine that. If so, then God has
a penis and he too likes *****. Golly, way to go God! Say, didn't
David "Jesus" Koresh use that line to get access to the wives and
minor children of his church members? Come to think of it, Rev. Jerry
Falwell and Rev. Pat Robertson and Pres. George W. Bush's friend Sun
Myung moonie uses the same technique to get females. They must be
junior gods, at least in their own minds.
A point was made in the BIBLE, it is sad you chose to miss it.
However If everything single detail were to be written down, the
world would not be able to carry all the books. You are an idiot.
And the story still makes no sense.
.
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| User: "Nivlem" |
|
| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
19 Oct 2004 02:20:10 PM |
|
|
Not-easily-duped wrote:
Nivlem <mlml@svn.net> wrote in message news:<417373BE.9040201@svn.net>...
Not-easily-duped wrote:
MrPepper11@go.com (MrPepper11) wrote in message
)
There is no dichotomy between Fact and Faith. Why it always has to be
"this versus that" and not both at the same time?
***** you all liberals liars and assholes....
Well, that's the problem, id'n it? There is a dichotomy often enough.
Let's do the tired old evolution thing again, shall we. Biology,
geology, the fossil record say one thing. Your Bible says something
else if interpreted litertally by ignoramuses. So what do you guys
You forget that Bible deals with Metaphysic. Science also is in the
hands of faillible humans. We don't despise Science, We shun
human ideologies that liars like you dressed up as Science.
Science is gift from our God.
You seem to be the one who is confusing science with metaphysics
here. If you view Genesis as an allegory of some sort, or a reference
to things entirely of some spirit world, there isn't a problem. When
you try to insist that it's a description of ordinary reality, you
start looking superstitious and delusional. Science does not have an
ideology. You and your kind are trying to pervert the process by
putting one on it. And no, science is not inerrant. Neither is the
Bible, also a product of humans. All Christian churches are run by
gasp< fallible humans, and seem to be highly imperfect. Fundies
like to overlook that. The sort of person that falls into the error
of fundamentalism seems to be very, very rigid and entirely
uncomfortable with uncertainty.
want to do? Kill science! Oh, yes. A return to the dark ages will do
us all a world of good. The black-and-white, good vs. evil attitude
our various sorts of Taliban factions bring to whatever the debate of
the moment tends to dictate its tone. I'm perfectly happy to let you
believe whatever you want, no matter how objectively silly. You just
don't get to stuff it down my throat. Btw, I thought you Christian
guys weren't supposed to use the word "*****"? What happened there?
How did this monkey find out that "*****" was a bad word?
It's a cultural prohibition, stupid. One is immersed in one's
culture. That's actually what prevents Christians from saying it.
Nowhere in the bible does it say "Thou shalt not say '*****'". You
cannot find any scriptural justification for enforcing that
particular taboo. It's fairly amusing. I notice that you don't try to
excuse your behavior. Now that I've given you the lovely excuse
above, you can, should anyone else question your use of "bad"
Anglo-Saxon words. Btw, how do you explain, in your twisted view of
the world, the fact that most of the "monkeys" write better than you do?
.
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| User: "Gene" |
|
| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
17 Oct 2004 08:32:48 PM |
|
|
On 17 Oct 2004 16:14:56 -0700,
(Not-easily-duped) wrote:
MrPepper11@go.com (MrPepper11) wrote in message
)
This is one key feature of the faith-based presidency: open dialogue,
based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value. It may, in
fact, create doubt, which undercuts faith. It could result in a loss
of confidence in the decision-maker and, just as important, by the
decision-maker. Nothing could be more vital, whether staying on
message with the voters or the terrorists or a California congressman
in a meeting about one of the world's most nagging problems. As Bush
himself has said any number of times on the campaign trail, "By
remaining resolute and firm and strong, this world will be peaceful."
He didn't always talk this way. A precious glimpse of Bush, just as he
was ascending to the presidency, comes from Jim Wallis, a man with the
added advantage of having deep acuity about the struggles between fact
and faith.
There is no dichotomy between Fact and Faith. Why it always has to be
"this versus that" and not both at the same time?
***** you all liberals liars and assholes....
don't forget the atheists! Terrible people. :)
.
|
|
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| User: "Not-easily-duped" |
|
| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
19 Oct 2004 04:24:50 PM |
|
|
Gene <gene@nowhere.com> wrote in message news:<m576n0do2hhgu2v4fkno8djmgub5iibjvn@4ax.com>...
On 17 Oct 2004 16:14:56 -0700,
(Not-easily-duped) wrote:
MrPepper11@go.com (MrPepper11) wrote in message
)
This is one key feature of the faith-based presidency: open dialogue,
based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value. It may, in
fact, create doubt, which undercuts faith. It could result in a loss
of confidence in the decision-maker and, just as important, by the
decision-maker. Nothing could be more vital, whether staying on
message with the voters or the terrorists or a California congressman
in a meeting about one of the world's most nagging problems. As Bush
himself has said any number of times on the campaign trail, "By
remaining resolute and firm and strong, this world will be peaceful."
He didn't always talk this way. A precious glimpse of Bush, just as he
was ascending to the presidency, comes from Jim Wallis, a man with the
added advantage of having deep acuity about the struggles between fact
and faith.
There is no dichotomy between Fact and Faith. Why it always has to be
"this versus that" and not both at the same time?
***** you all liberals liars and assholes....
don't forget the atheists! Terrible people. :)
I have them not in my prayers but in my curses.
I curse them days and nights.
That the Mighty one make their wives childless.
That they may die without dying
.
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| User: "Danzig" |
|
| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
21 Oct 2004 01:10:13 PM |
|
|
I have them not in my prayers but in my curses.
I curse them days and nights.
That the Mighty one make their wives childless.
That they may die without dying
Haven't you missed one of the BASIC tenants of Christianity?? Love your
neighbor as thyself I believe is the line
.
|
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| User: "Not-easily-duped" |
|
| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
21 Oct 2004 05:53:50 PM |
|
|
Danzig <tyatcak@telus.net> wrote in message news:<9YSdd.23675$_u6.5664@edtnps89>...
I have them not in my prayers but in my curses.
I curse them days and nights.
That the Mighty one make their wives childless.
That they may die without dying
Haven't you missed one of the BASIC tenants of Christianity?? Love your
neighbor as thyself I believe is the line
You are not my neighbor let alone my brother.
.
|
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| User: "Richard" |
|
| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
21 Oct 2004 07:46:34 PM |
|
|
wrote...
Danzig <tyatcak@telus.net> wrote in message news:<9YSdd.23675$_u6.5664@edtnps89>...
I have them not in my prayers but in my curses.
I curse them days and nights.
That the Mighty one make their wives childless.
That they may die without dying
Haven't you missed one of the BASIC tenants of Christianity?? Love your
neighbor as thyself I believe is the line
You are not my neighbor let alone my brother.
If you think you are a Christian, you are sadly mistaken.
.
|
|
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| User: "Not-easily-duped" |
|
| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
22 Oct 2004 09:01:18 AM |
|
|
Richard <rh310@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<MPG.1be22273cf5bbadf989ea5@news.verizon.net>...
Codebreaker@bigsecret.com wrote...
Danzig <tyatcak@telus.net> wrote in message news:<9YSdd.23675$_u6.5664@edtnps89>...
I have them not in my prayers but in my curses.
I curse them days and nights.
That the Mighty one make their wives childless.
That they may die without dying
Haven't you missed one of the BASIC tenants of Christianity?? Love your
neighbor as thyself I believe is the line
You are not my neighbor let alone my brother.
If you think you are a Christian, you are sadly mistaken.
And If you think I am not a Christian, you are not sadly mistaken.
.
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| User: "Jez" |
|
| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
22 Oct 2004 09:26:52 AM |
|
|
Not-easily-duped wrote:
Gene <gene@nowhere.com> wrote in message news:<m576n0do2hhgu2v4fkno8djmgub5iibjvn@4ax.com>...
On 17 Oct 2004 16:14:56 -0700,
(Not-easily-duped) wrote:
MrPepper11@go.com (MrPepper11) wrote in message
)
This is one key feature of the faith-based presidency: open dialogue,
based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value. It may, in
fact, create doubt, which undercuts faith. It could result in a loss
of confidence in the decision-maker and, just as important, by the
decision-maker. Nothing could be more vital, whether staying on
message with the voters or the terrorists or a California congressman
in a meeting about one of the world's most nagging problems. As Bush
himself has said any number of times on the campaign trail, "By
remaining resolute and firm and strong, this world will be peaceful."
He didn't always talk this way. A precious glimpse of Bush, just as he
was ascending to the presidency, comes from Jim Wallis, a man with the
added advantage of having deep acuity about the struggles between fact
and faith.
There is no dichotomy between Fact and Faith. Why it always has to be
"this versus that" and not both at the same time?
***** you all liberals liars and assholes....
don't forget the atheists! Terrible people. :)
I have them not in my prayers but in my curses.
I curse them days and nights.
That the Mighty one make their wives childless.
That they may die without dying
Good ol' Christian love....great innit !
--
Jez
'Realism is seductive because once you have accepted the reasonable
notion that you should base your actions on reality, you are too often
led to accept, without much questioning, someone else's version of what
that reality is. It is a crucial act of independent thinking to be
skeptical of someone else's description of reality.'-
Howard Zinn
Skype callto://hellward
NFS Porsche Unleashed, Hot Pursuit 2, Underground.
Yeowww
.
|
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|
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| User: "thomas p" |
|
| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
20 Oct 2004 02:19:18 PM |
|
|
On 19 Oct 2004 14:24:50 -0700,
(Not-easily-duped) wrote:
Gene <gene@nowhere.com> wrote in message news:<m576n0do2hhgu2v4fkno8djmgub5iibjvn@4ax.com>...
On 17 Oct 2004 16:14:56 -0700,
(Not-easily-duped) wrote:
MrPepper11@go.com (MrPepper11) wrote in message
)
This is one key feature of the faith-based presidency: open dialogue,
based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value. It may, in
fact, create doubt, which undercuts faith. It could result in a loss
of confidence in the decision-maker and, just as important, by the
decision-maker. Nothing could be more vital, whether staying on
message with the voters or the terrorists or a California congressman
in a meeting about one of the world's most nagging problems. As Bush
himself has said any number of times on the campaign trail, "By
remaining resolute and firm and strong, this world will be peaceful."
He didn't always talk this way. A precious glimpse of Bush, just as he
was ascending to the presidency, comes from Jim Wallis, a man with the
added advantage of having deep acuity about the struggles between fact
and faith.
There is no dichotomy between Fact and Faith. Why it always has to be
"this versus that" and not both at the same time?
***** you all liberals liars and assholes....
don't forget the atheists! Terrible people. :)
I have them not in my prayers but in my curses.
I curse them days and nights.
That the Mighty one make their wives childless.
That they may die without dying
Words of compassion and tolerance from the follower of the god of
love.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Not-easily-duped" |
|
| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
21 Oct 2004 12:09:23 PM |
|
|
thomas p <thomasagainspam@yahoo.dk> wrote in message news:<i9vbn0to99pvlsv4037megcnvnunc7f59n@4ax.com>...
On 19 Oct 2004 14:24:50 -0700,
(Not-easily-duped) wrote:
Gene <gene@nowhere.com> wrote in message news:<m576n0do2hhgu2v4fkno8djmgub5iibjvn@4ax.com>...
On 17 Oct 2004 16:14:56 -0700,
(Not-easily-duped) wrote:
MrPepper11@go.com (MrPepper11) wrote in message
)
This is one key feature of the faith-based presidency: open dialogue,
based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value. It may, in
fact, create doubt, which undercuts faith. It could result in a loss
of confidence in the decision-maker and, just as important, by the
decision-maker. Nothing could be more vital, whether staying on
message with the voters or the terrorists or a California congressman
in a meeting about one of the world's most nagging problems. As Bush
himself has said any number of times on the campaign trail, "By
remaining resolute and firm and strong, this world will be peaceful."
He didn't always talk this way. A precious glimpse of Bush, just as he
was ascending to the presidency, comes from Jim Wallis, a man with the
added advantage of having deep acuity about the struggles between fact
and faith.
There is no dichotomy between Fact and Faith. Why it always has to be
"this versus that" and not both at the same time?
***** you all liberals liars and assholes....
don't forget the atheists! Terrible people. :)
I have them not in my prayers but in my curses.
I curse them days and nights.
That the Mighty one make their wives childless.
That they may die without dying
Words of compassion and tolerance from the follower of the god of
love.
***** that! What word of compassion do you expect from me?
And what should I expect from you?
Y'a always think that you can have it both ways. Ain't gonna happen
.
|
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| User: "Jez" |
|
| Title: Re: George W. Bush, Messenger from God (N.Y. Times Magazine) |
22 Oct 2004 09:29:01 AM |
|
|
Not-easily-duped wrote:
thomas p <thomasagainspam@yahoo.dk> wrote in message news:<i9vbn0to99pvlsv4037megcnvnunc7f59n@4ax.com>...
On 19 Oct 2004 14:24:50 -0700,
(Not-easily-duped) wrote:
Gene <gene@nowhere.com> wrote in message news:<m576n0do2hhgu2v4fkno8djmgub5iibjvn@4ax.com>...
On 17 Oct 2004 16:14:56 -0700, | | | | | | |
