Love this. From Drudge:
Elizabeth Bumiller of the NEW YORK TIMES asked Kerry: "President Bush has said that freedom and fear have always been at war, and God is not neutral between them. He's made quite clear in his speeches that he feels God is on America's side.
"Is God on America's side?"
Oooooh, that’s a good one. It lets the questioner get in a Bush dig while posing a stumper that’s rather difficult to fudge. Of course people can have long complex theological arguments about the matter (just had one with my wife, for that matter – 40 minutes of intelligent discussion that completely missed the point, because she came at it from the lofty abstract approach, and I was looking at it solely through the cruel lens of politics.
If you want to be president of the United States, of course, your answer is simple: “yes,” and you move along to health care as soon as you can. Because the overwhelming majority of Americans believe in God, and they like to think they’re on the right side of the big guy. But! If you say “yes” without footnoting your statement, you run the risk of alienating the voters who get Marty-Feldman eys when politicians claim they have God on their side. Kerry seems to be assuring his base that he shares the religious values of those who have religious values – and if you don’t, fine, no prob – and that he has all the spiritual opinions of George Bush without the off-putting assertions of conviction. But! If you waffle on this one because you don’t want your base to think God wanted us to invade Iraq, then you’re suggesting that God preferred Saddam to remain in power, or that God wanted the US to work through the UN. Yea, the Lord did appear, and commandest the faithful to audit the Oil-for-Food program, and to pass a draft resolution expressing the will of the council for greater accountability.
If God is generally on our side but opposes the doctrine of preemption, then God would have shook His head at the invasion of Iraq. In which case He would have been more troubled by the invasion that resulted in liberation than the horrors of daily life in Iraq. War is bad. But Iraqis might have liberated themselves at some point down the road.
True enough. But how do you ask someone to be the last man to get fed to a plastic shredder for a regime that collapsed a day later?
Kerry’s reply:
Well, God will -- look, I think -- I believe in God, but I don't believe, the way President Bush does, in invoking it all the time in that way. I think it is -- we pray that God is on our side, and we pray hard. And God has been on our side through most of our existence.
My follow-up: Well, Senator Kerry, when wasn’t He? I’m not saying that God has favored all our undertakings, as the dollar bill suggests; surely slavery was a gross offense. But let’s press the matter and bring up the central animating issue of Kerry’s persona: was God on our side in Vietnam? You have several answers:
He was.
He was, but He disapproved of the way the war was handled.
He wasn’t.
The first is unacceptable to Kerry. The second just sounds silly. The third is consistent with what Kerry said after he came back from Vietnam; how could God countenance such horrors? But that puts God on the side of the triumph of atheistic communism.
Let’s go back to the answer: I don’t believe the way President Bush does, in invoking it all the time in that way.
Like this?
In the face of great perils never before encountered, our strong purpose is to protect and to perpetuate the integrity of democracy. For this we muster the spirit of America, and the faith of America. We do not retreat. We are not content to stand still. As Americans, we go forward, in the service of our country, by the will of God. --- FDR’s third inaugural address.
Like this?
God has blessed our land in many ways. He has given our people stout hearts and strong arms with which to strike mighty blows for freedom and truth. He has given to our country a faith which has become the hope of all peoples in an anguished world. --- FDR’s fourth inaugural address.
Like this?
The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. --- That’s JFK.
Here’s Bush:
More than half of all the Muslims in the world live in freedom under democratically constituted governments. They succeed in democratic societies, not in spite of their faith, but because of it. A religion that demands individual moral accountability, and encourages the encounter of the individual with God, is fully compatible with the rights and responsibilities of self-government.
And the speech to the troops a year ago:
Iraqis are a good and gifted people. They deserve better than a life spent bowing before a dictator. The people of Iraq deserve to stand on their feet as free men and women, the citizens of a free country.
This goal of a free and peaceful Iraq unites our coalition. And this goal comes from the deepest convictions of America. The freedom you defend is the right of every person and the future of every nature. The liberty we prize is not American's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity.
State of the Union, Sept 20, 2001, when the fires at Ground Zero still burned:
I will not forget the wound to our country and those who inflicted it. I will not yield, I will not rest, I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people.
The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.
That’s why I think it was a brilliant question. It doesn’t tell you who God favors – we all can have that debate. It tells you about the man answering the question. I ask you: who’s speaking his heart, and who’s crafting a response on the fly trying to cover all bases? One more question: take these two statements:
“The liberty we prize is not American's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity.”
Or:
“We pray that God is on our side, and we pray hard. And God has been on our side through most of our existence.”
Which one best represents the face of America you’d like the President to show to the world?