The Divine Calm of George W. Bush: Iraq's a mess, half the country hates you

For George W. Bush, August 6, 2001, had to have been a pretty harrowing day, reading as he did in his Daily Brief that operatives of Osama bin Laden were "in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives," and surveilling federal buildings in New York, and mulling over plans to attack Washington, D.C. But a reporter who saw him cavorting on his Crawford ranch not long after said, "The president was probably at the most relaxed I've ever seen him."

April 9, 2004, couldn't have been too nice for the president either. That was when he was deciding whether to publicize the contents of that Daily Brief, after Condoleezza Rice's grilling at the hands of the commission investigating 9-11. He knew the document would unravel his cover story of several years' standing as to why he couldn’t have known Bin Laden was determined to strike in the U.S.; its title was "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." But Bush blithely spent the day pulling bass out of the lake on his ranch with a TV host, who observed, "The president was very relaxed."

It is one of the abiding mysteries of the Bush presidency: that when feces start hitting the fan, the man at the center seems not to have a care in the world.

Lyn Nofziger knows something about presidents under pressure: He worked with Nixon during Watergate and with Reagan during Iran-Contra. "There was a little panic on September 11," Nofziger, now a Republican lobbyist, observes of George W. Bush. "But I don’t really see any real signs of panic now."

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Does it have something to do with growing up wealthy and handsome, the son of a powerful politician, breezing through Yale under the protection of his Skull and Bones confreres? But George Bush the father possessed those same attributes, and in the middle of his re-election campaign in 1992, his approval ratings likewise heading south, he looked about ready to walk into a wall. "Close associates and even some foreign leaders have talked privately about episodes in which Bush looked bad and seemed distracted, nervous, or not entirely focused on the subject at hand," the Los Angeles Times put it delicately at the time.

The pressures for Bush the elder were hardly as great as they are now for Bush the younger, with the occupation of Iraq falling into chaos. Yet the elder seemed wracked by doubts. The younger seems to harbor none. What accounts for the difference?

Shortly after his 1998 re-election as governor of Texas, Republican heavyweights begin to discuss George Bush Jr. as a presidential prospect. W. is dubious. Then one day he's sitting in church, Highland Methodist in Dallas, with his mother. The pastor, Mark Craig, preaches on Moses' ambivalence about leading the Israelites out of bondage. ("Sorry, God, I'm busy," the minister has Moses responding. "I've got a family. I've got sheep to tend. I've got a life.")

Pastor Craig moves on from the allegorical portion of his sermon. The American people are "starved for leadership," he says, "starved for leaders who have ethical and moral courage." He reminds his congregation, "It's not always easy or convenient for leaders to step forward. Remember, even Moses had doubts."

Barbara Bush, the high-church Episcopalian whose husband rejected advice to insert scriptural references into his speeches because they made him uncomfortable, tells her son, "He was talking to you."

George W. Bush, the born-again Christian, apparently hears his mother's "he" as the providential He. According to Stephen Mansfield's sympathetic account in The Faith of George W. Bush, he then called his friend, the Charismatic preacher James Robison, host of the TV show Life Today, and told him, "I've heard the call. I believe God wants me to run for president."

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It's hard to be perturbed when you believe what our president believes. According to Professor Bruce Lincoln, who teaches a seminar on the theology of George W. Bush at the University of Chicago Divinity School, the president "does feel that people are called upon by the Divine to undertake certain positions in the world, and undertake certain actions, and to be responsible for certain things. And he makes, I think, quite clear—explicitly in some contexts, and implicitly in a great many others—that he occupies the office by a Divine calling. That God put him there with a sense of purpose."

It has been a topic of some confusion, the meaning of George Bush's religious beliefs. Some commentators trumpet the president's ties to Howard Ahmanson, a fantastically wealthy Californian who is an acolyte of the "Christian Reconstructionist" movement—which aims to place the United States under Biblical law (though Ahmanson proclaims himself personally against, say, the stoning of homosexuals). Others point up his connections to apocalyptic millennialists like Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind novels. The problem is that, theologically, Bush can't serve both these masters at once. The likes of LaHaye actively search for signs of the Second Coming of Christ and spend their days feverishly speculating about and preparing for the seven years’ battle for the world that will follow. Reconstructionists, Alan Jacobs, a professor at the evangelical college Wheaton, has explained, "are pretty confident Jesus isn’t going to show up any time soon," which is precisely their rationale for bringing the Book of Leviticus to life in the here-and-now.

There's no evidence that George Bush believes what Christian Reconstructionists believe. And in contrast to Ronald Reagan, who was always letting loose intemperate slips about America's role in Revelation's End Times showdown, the University of Chicago's Bruce Lincoln says, "in [Bush's] public messages I find very little that's apocalyptic."

Cautioning that it's almost impossible to know anyone's true beliefs, Lincoln still thinks he's got a pretty good sense of Bush's. The results help illuminate this question of how Bush maintains his peace of mind under such unimaginable stress.

When the drunken and dissolute prodigal finally found Jesus in the mid 1980s, the book of the Bible his study group was poring over was the Acts of the Apostles. "It's focused on missionizing, evangelizing, spreading the faith," Lincoln explains. "It's not end-of-the-world stuff. It's expansionist—it's religious imperialism, if you will. And I think that remains his primary orientation."

What's more, Lincoln adds, his primary orientation also holds that "the U.S. is the new Israel as God's most favored nation, and those responsible for the state of America in the world also enjoy special favor. . . . Foremost among the signs of grace—if I read him correctly—are the cardinal American virtues of courage, on the one hand, and compassion, on the other." For Bush to waver would be to tempt God's disfavor; what's more, we can speculate that the very act of holding to his resolve—what his critics identify as stubbornness and arrogance—becomes, tautologically, a way of both producing, and reassuring himself of, his special place in God's plan. The existential benefits are obvious. "Wherever the U.S. happens to advance something that he can call 'freedom,' he thinks he’s serving God's will, and he proclaims he's serving God's will."

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The Al Qaeda attacks play into this vision perfectly. They have allowed George Bush to move his administration into a Manichaean realm that pre–9-11 issues like stem cell research and estate tax repeal never could have. It's why so much of his re-election rhetoric, both from the campaign and from his followers, proceeds as if his inauguration took place on September 12, 2001. Or, as the jacket copy for The Faith of George W. Bush puts it, "From the tragedy of September 11 to the present-day conflict in Iraq, President Bush has learned to use his faith to help him live his life—both in office and in private." It is a field of force that Bush helps shape every time he ends his speeches with the homiletic "May God continue to bless America."

Explains Lincoln in his book Holy Terrors: Thinking About Religion After September 11, it's a phrase that, by transcending the clichéd version of the formulation, "suggests Bush and his speechwriters gave serious thought to the phrase and decided to emphatically reaffirm the notion that the United States has enjoyed divine favor throughout its history—moreover, that it deserves said favor insofar as it remains firm in its faith."

Lincoln points out an especially cunning aspect of the post–9-11 incarnation of Christian militancy: that Bush's invocation of Islam as a "religion of peace," a great religion hijacked by the terrorists, need not contradict the specifically Christian aspects of this vision. Some Christians, Lincoln observes, "would maintain that Christianity is not a religion. The others"—Islam, Shinto, whatever—"are religions." Christianity, simply, is reality: the truth. Bush can praise Islam to the skies, but it needn't take away from the Christian right's sense that Bush knows it's really Christ who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

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This belief among his followers is another element behind Bush's apparent imperturbability. His signals to them have produced a mass of people who unequivocally embrace the notion that their president was given to them by Providence.

Jennifer Shroder is the pseudonym of a California housewife and religious-right activist whose agitations against textbooks she claims teach children "how to pray to Allah" and "to participate in any and all religions except that of His Son, Jesus Christ" have won her coverage from the Associated Press, the New York Post, and USA Today. In an e-mail to the Voice, she explains President Bush's divine selection by way of 1 Corinthians, and also the Book of Isaiah—the latter for its injunction "Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people," the former for its description of the leader Jehoiada, "who is very similar to President Bush, using 'sword and shield' along with the leaders with him."

She illustrates an article on her website, blessedcause.org, called "President Bush, National Hero" with a painting of the president alongside the ghostly figures of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, who rest their hands upon his shoulders, heads bowed. A halo of light emanates from Bush's head; in intersection with the horizontal of the presidential lectern, it appears to form a crucifix.

Lest you think Jen is alone, the painting comes from a another website, presidentialprayerteam.com, through which 2.8 million members receive daily instructions on how to coordinate prayer for the president. I don't know about you, but if I had 2.8 million people advertising the fact that they were praying for my well-being every day—and, to boot, if I actually believed that prayer worked—I'd feel pretty damned relaxed, too.

No, President Bush feels little reason to doubt. "It's different from, say, Dick Nixon," says Lyn Nofziger, "who was putting on a brave front but knew underneath he was wrong—that he was doing things that if he ever got caught he would be in trouble. I don't think this guy thinks that. He thinks he's doing the proper thing."

My point is that President Bush does not make decisions based on religious reasons alone. You have no proof that he does, because he doesn't.

If he did, he wouldn't be talking to advisors and seeking out additional information.

Even if you were to believe that loathesome creature, Richard Clarke, Bush cornered him and wanted to make SURE that Saddam wasn't behind 9/11.

If he was acting on religious reasons alone, he wouldn't have done that but would have gone ahead and attacked Iraq before attacking Afghanistan.

As well, your comment that he makes a decision and religious reasons prevent him from changing his mind are hardly borne out by the facts. I listed a few things he has changed his mind about. So did other freepers. You have ignored those examples. Conveniently.

then isn't this an abuse of faith, not a way of honoring God?

Your basic premise is upside-down... you obviously don't hang out with dedicated Christians ;-) The more sincere and genuine the Christian, the more humble they are and likely to re-examine every decision assuming they may have made a mistake.

The depth of Bush's faith makes him so imperturbable

Bush is "imperturbable" not because of his confidence in his decisions, but because of his confidence in his own motivations.

BTW, I firmly believe Bush would be very open and humble about any mistakes he makes were our press not waiting eagerly to use any such admission as a club against him. And what mistakes did the non-religiously-faithful Clinton admit to that weren't first revealed by DNA and wiretaps?

Sender, find me one example of a person on the left who finds a rabid devotion to Islam even to extremes of death a sign of character or sincerity.

I'm sure there aren't any. It's more the old "enemy of my enemy is my friend" philosophy that leads many on the left (even radical feminists) to overlook Islamic atrocities, entranced by all of that powerful, wonderful anti-American sentiment they see on their TV screens.

Conservatives did praise Muslim devotion ad nauseam before 9/11. Hopefully they have learned the error of their ways.

are you not familiar with Bush quote, spoken at Aqaba to the Palestinian leadership: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did."

Man, you are at the wrong place.

Let's see that quote. Let's have a reliable source.

And NOT from a Palestinian leader, if you don't mind.

Sender, find me one example of a person on the left who finds a rabid devotion to Islam even to extremes of death a sign of character or sincerity.

That’s easy:

"We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly." -- Bill Maher, Politically Incorrect

In addition to praising their devotion to the death, Maher was also wrong. If you sincerely believe that, by murdering tens of thousands, you will be rewarded with paradise, it takes absolutely no courage to murder those people. What it really takes is a bizarre form of greed.

Brad's Gramma's point lets me kill two birds with one stone. First, on the title of my article: writers most often don't choose their own titles, and I'm often annoyed by the ones the Village Voice puts on my articles.

Second--and anyone who joins a discussion with me on Free Republic should take note of this because I make the point again and again and again--I am one of the many, many people on the left who had contempt for Bill Clinton (for various reasons, most different from yours).

I can take care of most of the other critiques by saying this: I have an enormous respect for religion, though I am not myself religious. It frustrates me when religion is used for an excuse for existential certainty, instead of a place for a trembling sense of our inadequacy before God, our awareness that His ways are mysterious and unkownable--using religion as an excuse to be arrogant, basically.

On the matter of the War on Terrorism--not on issues like who to hire as treasury secretary--Bush has consistently refused to admit a single mistake. If you think the course of American foreign policy in the past year has been admirable, you are entitled to that opinion. But the people who told me Bush is implacable on the subject were Republican heavies like Martin Anderson (who spent two years working with Bush prior to the election) and Lyn Nofziger.

And if you read the live thread on his press conference, you will see that the preponderance of participants found Bush's most honorable quality his refusal to admit mistakes in the war on terrorism.

And many, many on that thread chalked up that quality to his faith.

Where do I say that to pray is a crime?

My question: let's just assume, for the sake of argument, that George W. Bush did something you didn't like, that you thought was disastrous. Even in the face of bad results, he kept at it. You get frustrated, and hope he will hew back to a course you do agree with. But then you realize he will never change, because Bush thinks his course is divinely ordained.

His immigration "proposal."
He believes he's doing the right thing.
I disagree, but I respect him for his stance.
And for his faith in God.

Nothing wrong with praying for your leaders. All I said in the article was that if I had 2.8 million people praying for me, it would make me confident.

Now, there are many people who find the arrival of Bush prophesized by scripture (I even talked to one person, and found examples of others, who suspect that Bush is the Beast of scripture). This, to me, is wrong, and sacriligious. Talk about arrogance--that God's ways are an open book, and that we can simply equate our leader with that which God wishes to incarnate. Arrogant.

Published on Monday, June 30, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Did Bush Say God Told Him To Go To War?
by Ira Chernus

Did God tell George W. Bush to strike at Al-Qaeda and Iraq? God only knows. Did Bush SAY that God told him to strike? We don't know yet, for sure. But we damn well better find out. Because if George W. said it, he-and all of us-could be in for some big trouble.

Here is what we know for sure, so far. Journalist Arnon Regular wrote, in the June 26 edition of Ha'aretz (Israel's most reputable newspaper), that he has minutes of a meeting among top-level Palestinian leaders, including Prime Minister Mahmoud Abas. The minutes are apparently quite detailed, because Regular wrote a long article recounting very specific conversations. The last paragraph of the article reads:

"According to Abbas, Bush said: 'God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.'"

Before you jump to any conclusions, remember that you are reading a translation of a translation of a translation. Mahmoud Abas does not speak English. Bush does not speak Arabic. If Bush said these words, or something like them, Abas heard them from a translator. Then Abas repeated them, as he remembered them a couple of weeks later, in Arabic. Some unknown person wrote down what he thought he heard Abas say. Then Regular, or someone at Ha'aretz, translated them back into English-or perhaps first into Hebrew and then into English.

Clearly, we don't yet know what Bush said, or why. Just as clearly, the man has some explaining to do. And whatever the truth of the matter, he has serious problems.

First, let's give him some benefit of the doubt. Maybe he never said it. The quote could be fabricated-though it is hard to see who would gain by making it up. Maybe he did say God told him to make war, but he doesn't really believe it. He might have made it up for effect, trying to score some political points in the Middle East.

Oh, look at this one:

So why were 140 members and associates of two families with close business and social ties to the Bush family—the bin Ladens, and the royal family of Saudi Arabia—allowed the only flights out of the country on those days? The monologue might get a little dry at this point—explaining all those ties: the Saudi family's bailing out Bush Jr.'s Harken Oil, for example. The racquetball games between Colin Powell and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador who brokered the favor. It might get complicated, laying out how, as ground zero was aflame and Arabs were being hustled into FBI interrogation rooms around the nation almost at random, the dozens of people most likely to be able to shed light on the suspects were ushered out of the country under FBI escort.

God, none other than Richard Clarke says that's a lie.

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