Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Godless George Bush?
Say, Andrew Sullivan points out something I noted last night but only in passing: Bush didn't directly invoke God at the end of his speech.
I didn't listen to the whole thing, only caught a little bit at the end. Frankly, I cannot stand to listen to the man talk, and I sure as hell won't watch his speeches on the TV. But I did catch the following closing:
We go forward with trust that the Author of Liberty will guide us through these trying hours. Thank you and good night.
The entire text is available on the White House's website. Scanning it, there's no mention of God. That's a very significant change from any other major speech Bush has given. Interesting.
Thoughts?
Jim Downey
Bookmark/Search this post with:
trackback
Trackback: http://atheistrevolution.blogspot.com/2007/01/escalation-in-iraq.html
Good one!
Good post, vjack - love the analogy!
Jim Downey
"Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
Author of Liberty
I assumed that the 'Author of Liberty' was a reference to god. Does it have some other meaning?
Noticed the same thing
I only caught snippets of the speech, but when I saw the conclusion I also noted there was no, "and god bless" in it.
I was initially disoriented by this, it was something I fully expected based on experience, but then it didn't happen.
However, the disorientation quickly faded away when I looked at it from an historical perspective (and I mean deep history, going back to the earliest writings of Mesopotamia).
W., like other dictators throughout history, likes to invoke the divine as a source of their authority (god wanted me to run for President...god told me to invade Iraq). But what do you do when things are going wrong...we are losing to the enemy, I promised to stop the floods (those two examples come from Sumaria and Egypt respectfully but how flippin' ironic anyway)?
Well, then you have to stop talking about the gods. I mean Marduke can't be wrong, Zeus can't be wrong, Ra can't be wrong. So you start to talk about humans. Fire the generals, blame the locals, hire new advisors and, at all costs, avoid talking about divine intervention.
Hadn't thought of that.
Hadn't thought of that. Hmm. It would imply that Bush actually realizes that we aren't winning in Iraq, and that everything has gone south, and so has decided to let God off the hook.
I'm not sure he's dealing with reality even to that extent. But it is a better explanation that I have (none) for the curious lack of invoking God's name.
Jim Downey
"Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
Bush
A few thoughts on Bush:
I've joked about George Bush as a 110-volt man plugged into a 220-volt outlet.
He’s an average guy who might do well running a barbecue stand, or maybe a tire store, but he’s painfully out of his league where he is. Seriously, I’m really not sure he’s CAPABLE of any sort of rational thought or introspection.
His incurious nature and inability to admit mistakes might serve his handlers and backers well, but overall, he’d have to be seriously mentally ill for the blowback he’s begun to experience not to be impacting him. Even given his level of insulation, I wouldn’t be surprised to find he was medicated up to the eyebrows. And as we get deeper into this next election cycle, critics will begin to climb on each other’s shoulders to savage him for his grim record. (Speaking of this next election, I don’t think the GOP has hit bottom either.)
I don’t feel sorry for him – the world is a much worse place for having had him in it, and people are still dying from his stupid decisions – but in some small measure I’m interested in a sort of clinical way in what happens to him after he leaves office.
Right now he has a group of fluffers and protectors who have a powerful interest in keeping him on an even keel. Whether that’s guarding him from negative news, protecting him from the honest reactions of the public, telling him constantly what a strong, decisive guy he is, or shoveling the drugs to him, that will last only as long as he’s in office. The day he’s out, that level of support and protection will begin to evaporate.
Much as I disliked Nixon, in the years after he left office, he seemed eventually to achieve some sort of political grace. Maybe it was just that the observers themselves (including me) mellowed. Maybe it was that we all discovered just how bad things could really be, and in hindsight Nixon wasn’t anywhere close to the worst that could happen to America.
But with Bush ... I can’t picture that happening. I really do think he will be remembered as the worst president ever to occupy the White House. Seems to me that judgment has already been made, and will be continuous through the rest of his life and on into the history books. All those people who defend him, because they see him as a useful tool, will simply walk away from him the day the lights of the Bush White House switch off in Jan. 2009.
Bush will become the OJ Simpson of American politics, an unforgettable historical embarrassment who happens to still be alive. Post-White-House, not even Hollywood Squares would take him.
Nixon...
Nixon, as basically criminal and evil as he was, at least had a brain and some innate intelligence. He was able to partially redeem himself in later years because of this.
Bush lacks any real intelligence, whether due to substance abuse, medical condition, or what have you. His narcissistic personality seems to be on the verge of complete meltdown, and one can only *hope* that there are enough sane people around him to contain the damage as things continue to deteriorate. I fear, however, that he will maintain the facade of sanity just long enough that no one will be willing to stop him when he goes completely over the edge.
May we learn this lesson, and learn it well: it is dangerous to depend on leaders who listen to the voice in their head, even if they do call it "God".
Jim Downey
PS: Edited to add in this: Wolcott has a lot to say on this very same subject today, here.
"Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering."
- R. Buckminster Fuller