The Right Rev.George W.Bush-Among the worshippers at the President's traveling revival show

Slate ^ | 8/05/04 | Chris Sullentrop

[Merry]

A preacher, a teacher, and a standup comedian COLUMBUS, Ohio—"I feel like a talk-show host," President Bush says midway through Thursday's first campaign event. He's standing next to a stool and a lectern, and he paces in circles to address the audience seated on all sides around him. Even from a distance, I can see why Bush charmed the press corps during his 2000 campaign. He's likable, winning, and self-deprecating. He's also quick on his feet, not with an instant recall of statistics but with snappy retorts that break up the room. This event was billed as an "Ask President Bush" forum, and although there didn't turn out to be much time for questions, from the outset the intimate setting made it more interactive than a typical presidential visit.

The president didn't get it quite right when he called himself a talk-show host. He opens more in the vein of a revival-tent preacher, albeit a subdued one, and he concludes as a standup comic. "I think you have to ask for the vote," Bush says near the beginning, as he always does. "You got it!" yells someone, the first of many call-and-response moments. Then Bush segues into something that sounds more like a sermon than a stump speech.

"All of you are soldiers in the army of compassion," the clergyman-in-chief tells the crowd. "And one of the reasons I'm seeking the office for four more years is to call upon our citizens to love your neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself." After his usual endorsement of the Golden Rule, Bush speaks of souls, which also isn't unusual for him: "We can change America one soul at a time by encouraging people to spread something government cannot spread, which is love."

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[Merry]

This article was written by a liberal writer. It shows the power of our President to speak to people.

[Old Sarge]

They truly are terrified of his faith aren't they?

[JennysCool]

After last week's Democratic convention, I felt that John Kerry had become the favorite in the presidential race. Now, after only two days with President Bush, I'm not so sure. He's that good. Unlike many people, I'm not threatened by the president's religious rhetoric. It must be the Midwestern Catholic in me. Like the people in the audience, I find it familiar and comforting. I can see why so many people believe the president is "one of us," no matter how rich or how elite his background. And I can see that Kerry will have a tough time besting Bush in all three debates.

Yes. This from a liberal writer -- who apparently gets it!

[JennysCool]

Ping for a good read!

[Howlin]

It's like kryptonite to them.

[Howlin]

Right behind you!!!

[jojodamofo]

No one is a stranger to George W. Bush, and the President is not a stranger to anyone. Workers and farmers, Nobel Prize winners and artists, fighters and dreamers, the happy and the desperate, each speaks with him in his own language, understands and is understood.

Everything is clear and plain, no one is nervous in the presence of this great man. No one is ordered, no one recruited, but each is called, following his own conscience, and has no choice but to follow lest he be convicted by his own heart. People voluntarily do what must be done, and no people on the earth is freer than the Americans.

[dead]

Interesting article, but the “hippy priest” analogy was pretty weak. I knew a couple of hippy priests back in my Catholic grammar school in the seventies. The were as un-Bush as you can imagine. The teacher on Beavis and Butthead was a hippy priest type, for example.

[Viet-Boat-Rider]

TEACHER arrested!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At the Columbia airport today, an individual later discovered to be a
Midlands Tech teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in
possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule, and a
calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney General John Ashcroft said he
believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement. He is
being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.
"Al-gebra is a fearsome cult," Ashcroft said. "They desire average
solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a
search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y'
and refer to themselves as 'unknowns,' but we have determined they
belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates
in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, '
There are 3 sides to every triangle'."

When asked to comment on the arrest, State Education Superintendent and
Democratic US Senate Candidate Inez Tennenbaum said, "If God had wanted
us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us
more fingers and toes."

[Rummyfan]

Bush almost gets weepy later, when he tells a story "that touched my heart," about seven Iraqi men who visited him in the Oval Office. The men's right hands were chopped off by order of Saddam Hussein, and they had X's burned into their foreheads. An American organization provided them with prostheses. "A guy took my Sharpie, wrapped his new fingers and wrote, 'God bless America,' in Arabic," Bush says, his voice choking up. "What a contrast," he says. In America, "We want to heal you, no matter who you are," his voice catching again.

Just an aside but this story was way under-covered. And who did this exactly? The effort was led by a cowboy surgeon from Houston! Moral of the story: if you need help, you can count on the cowboys. If you want lip service, look to JFK and multilateralists!

[jnarcus]

Not even...cause he thinks there will be three debates when only one has been talked about...But what he is really trying to do is get the dems off their butts to vote by telling them "hey this guy ain't a dufus...watch out".

[Roscoe Karns]

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[firewalk]

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