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WTF, WTF....
George W. Bush, in one of his moments of clarity, has explained it all to us.
"I fully understand that the job of the president is and must always be protecting the great right of people to worship or not worship as they see fit. That's what distinguishes us from the Taliban. The greatest freedom we have or one of the greatest freedoms is the right to worship the way you see fit. On the other hand, I don't see how you can be president at least from my perspective, how you can be president, without a relationship with the Lord."
Which is interesting.
Americans will be better informed than I about this, but I would have thought that the sort of born-again self-obsessed certainty that GWB is talking about was comparatively rare among Presidents, and certainly among great ones. Washington? I doubt it. Jefferson? Certainly not. Adams? Doubtful Lincoln? Certainly not. Teddy Roosevelt? Unlikely. FDR? Nope. Eisenhower? Not a chance. LBJ? You're joking of course.
Whereas duff Presidents - Woodrow Wilson for example- are quite another matter.
There are one or two great British PMs who were religious - Gladstone is the obvious one - but he would have regarded being born-again as a piece of presumptuous claptrap. Churchill, on the other hand - and before anyone says anything I believe him colossally over-rated, massively wrong on a whole bunch of issues and still a great PM - was almost entirely godless.
Apart from what GWB's views mean for the separation of church and state, there is the colossal arrogance, so typical of his sort of Christian, in his assumption that the way he does things is the only way. He also seems to think he is an adequate President.
Quos vult perdire, dementat is so much more succinct than Whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad that I make no apologies for using the Latin.
"I fully understand that the job of the president is and must always be protecting the great right of people to worship or not worship as they see fit. That's what distinguishes us from the Taliban. The greatest freedom we have or one of the greatest freedoms is the right to worship the way you see fit. On the other hand, I don't see how you can be president at least from my perspective, how you can be president, without a relationship with the Lord."
Which is interesting.
Americans will be better informed than I about this, but I would have thought that the sort of born-again self-obsessed certainty that GWB is talking about was comparatively rare among Presidents, and certainly among great ones. Washington? I doubt it. Jefferson? Certainly not. Adams? Doubtful Lincoln? Certainly not. Teddy Roosevelt? Unlikely. FDR? Nope. Eisenhower? Not a chance. LBJ? You're joking of course.
Whereas duff Presidents - Woodrow Wilson for example- are quite another matter.
There are one or two great British PMs who were religious - Gladstone is the obvious one - but he would have regarded being born-again as a piece of presumptuous claptrap. Churchill, on the other hand - and before anyone says anything I believe him colossally over-rated, massively wrong on a whole bunch of issues and still a great PM - was almost entirely godless.
Apart from what GWB's views mean for the separation of church and state, there is the colossal arrogance, so typical of his sort of Christian, in his assumption that the way he does things is the only way. He also seems to think he is an adequate President.
Quos vult perdire, dementat is so much more succinct than Whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad that I make no apologies for using the Latin.
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Which is not something that I necessarily think is a good thing for America, but I also don't necessarily find it creepy or arrogant. I don't think he's really saying that he doesn't think that no-one without faith could be president, just that the type of president he is, the way he fulfils the role, he cannot imagine doing it without faith.
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That would imply that he possesses a humility that he has heretofore never shown. He's risen to this position in the same manner that he has achieved everything in his life; by his name. I believe his comment about "a relationship with the Lord" is, IMO, simply an extension of his characteristic arrogance: God chose him to be president. God told him to invade Iraq. He believes himself to be special, has always believed himself to be special and his "relationship with the Lord" is further proof of that.
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This would be the same God who told him that the US would have no casualties in the Iraq war, presumably. (Wish I could remember what article I read that in. It was one about how his underlings were having major trouble talking to him, at least if they weren't saying yes all the time.)
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I haven't seen that quote from Mr. Bush before, but if that's from him lately, it's just more evidence that he believes everyone thinks like him, has the same values, and should agree with his point of view.
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I suspect that Clinton is a far more traditional Protestant in his heart. And his use of the double consequence as a moral get-out in a variety of circumstances indicates that his belief is very sophisticated whatever it is.
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And being a deeply unimaginative man, he cannot imagine anyone being different from himself. How anyone could possibly carry a burden of responsibility without the Lord to carry it for one absolutely escapes him.
This is also a function of the culture from which GWB sprang. As an inhabitant of a civilised country with a deep skepticism of organised religion, you might not believe how God-obsessed many Americans are until you visit flyover country and see for yourself. If you told them your personal history and beliefs, their heads would just explode.
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::nods in agreement::
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In my own mind, he's only substituted one addiction for the other - just in the case of "relating to the Lord", it's rather more socially acceptable, in the circles he's part of.
That's not to say I'm against religion, mind, just that he's an example of how he's cherry-picked, and skipped challenging bits like compassion for others, particularly when they are not of his own tribe (esp the tribe of believers). My own tart reply would go something along the line of "Everyone has a relationship with the Lord, some are just more arrogant about it than others," and follow it up with a reading of Jesus asking the Pharisees, "Who told you to flee?" and reminding them God could make sons of Abraham from the stones at their feet, so there! But that goes quickly into my own personal universe territory, *sigh*
Crazy(*waves* hello, by the way, since I don't really know you, hope I'm not too impertinent on the religious front)Soph
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Whereas duff Presidents - Woodrow Wilson for example- are quite another matter.
You really rate Woodrow Wilson as a duff president? He would make most people's top ten. Here's one survey among many of presidential greatness which agrees.
Leaving that aside, while I don't like Bush, you seem to me to be confusing two quite different things here. On the one hand when Bush speaks of a "relationship with the Lord" he means no more than the other two Presidents of my lifetime from his religious tradition, Carter and Clinton, did when they made similar pronouncements (as both did, Carter more often than Clinton).
On the other hand, he is clearly also an arrogant git, a character flaw that has little to do with his religious beliefs but that I suspect was shared by more than one of those on your list of great presidents!
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I have no objection to people being arrogant gits if they are Jefferson or Lincoln, though in the latter case at least he was capable of major changes of heart, for example on the subject of the future of African Americans. He started off as a 'scientific' racist who assumed the best thing would be to ship them back to Africa and then changed his mind and was prepared to contemplate full equality before the law. Jefferson was far more of a git, but again, his actual achievements and virtues account for this.
The thing GWB is proudest of is retaining his sobriety, which hey! good for him, but lots of people manage that.
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(Anonymous) 2005-01-14 01:24 pm (UTC)(link)Lin
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What counts is not whether he personally were a racist, but what he did. Truman was pretty racist, but when the chips were down he supported civil rights. Wilson's policies for blacks were pretty bad all right, but I don't believe racial policy is a GO TO JAIL, GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL card that trumps everything else. Let's judge him by mixing it up with all his other policies. The most important single policy of his term was the League of Nations, for which he gets an A for vision and an F for implementation.
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He also has what I call Delusions of Adequacy.
And: being absolutely convinced that you're right is, in practice, a barrier to actually being right on an ongoing basis. This is because only an open (and therefore continually doubt-plagued) mind is adaptable to new situations, which crop up all the time.
As for your Latin phrase: from your lips to Their ears, say I. All during the election I kept hearing people talk about "Moral Values" -- meaning "gay people should suffer as much as possible" -- and thinking "Damnant quod non intelligunt." Also "es agricola," but less often and somewhat guiltily!
Required Courses
Sorry if this is telling my granny to suck eggs
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