A new documentary, timed to compete with the release of Fahrenheit 9/11, presents George to the faithful as a warrior of God.
FrankRich: The Passion of the Bush
We've had inklings of this. There was that "crusade" slip. Then the equation with the election of Kerry with the forces of evil.
Underneath all of it is a very scary scenario.
Armageddon and the Christian Right
Bush is not Jesus's man in the White House. Here's how I (a secular humanist and Sunday school drop-out) figured it out.
"...Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. "(Matthew 5:38-44)
The Bible is full of contradictions. Stories, parables, ambiguity. But a few statements stand out.
Thou shalt not kill, for example. Doing good to those that hate you. Not exactly a Bush philosophy.
I got a bit of internet humor from a friend in North Carolina that starts out:
"Things you have to believe to be a Republican today:
1. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad
guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when
Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush
needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.
2. Jesus loves you but shares your hatred of
homosexuals and Hillary Clinton."
If conservatives would put their agenda out on the table, then the American people would have a chance to decide.
Is $200 billion (and counting) and over 1000 American lives preferable to economic sanctions in dealing with one of the world's dictators?
Shall we push for Armageddon in the Middle East?
Shall we cut down all the remaining old growth forests?
Do we want industry to set our standards for clean air?
Stealth and secrecy are used by this Administration to impose ideas that the public has consistently rejected. To open up huge areas to unrestricted logging, title your bill "The Healthy Forest Initiative". To secure the supply of oil in the Middle East, shake your fist and reiterate "Weapons of Mass Destruction." To force the agenda of charter schools advocates, you create a standard of failure and call it "No Child Left Behind".
That's what's wrong here. It's not just their ideas, it's way they go about it. It's the the arrogance of assuming they are above the law, that they know what's better for the American people than we ourselves do.
That's what's so scary about Bush's Jesus complex.
So where's the hope? I like Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's Daily Show. He was on Charlie Rose last night. He's the one who responded to the idea that the best guy to be president was the most fun guy to have a beer with, "I want to go with the designated driver". Last night he said (in my paraphrase) "When the Bush administration hands the American people a glass of toxic waste, they don't look to the polls to see if they want it, they look at the polls to figure out what else they can call it."
I believe in the American people. "Fool 'em once", to misquote Bush's misquote, but we won't be fooled again.

I notice how anchors on TV swerve to avoid it. The Republicans have so successfully given it a bad name, that one is supposed to tip toe, stutter and blush before we say it.
Liberal.
How did this happen? How, in an equally divided country, did so many Americans become so disenfranchised?
Edward Galeano, Uruguyan poet put it this way in his prose poem "The Culture of Terror".
"Blatant colonialism mutilates you without pretense: it forbids you to talk, it forbids you to act, it forbids you to exist. Invisible colonialism, however, convinces you that serfdom is your destiny and impotence is your nature: it convinces you that it's not possible to speak. not possible to act, not possible to exist."
No longer. We're starting to challenge the naysayers, the righteous right. Last night I watched Howard Dean on Charlie Rose. Dean rode a tsunami of discontent on a Wellstone catch phrase "I'm from the Democratic wing of the Democratic party". A unapologetic call to arms that resonated with millions of young people, it shifted the course of the campaign. Dean is riding on his new book "You Have the Power".
Dean wants to to reclaim the "l" word. Dean wants to remind the public that "liberal" rhymes with fiscal responsibility. "Bill Clinton was the first president in 33 years to balance the budget".
Bush's frat boy charm wears off quick- even for Republicans- when you point out how happy he is to spend other people's money. His spending exceeds even the previous record holders, Ronald Reagan and George the First. After Clinton left the White House, budget analysts were predicting a 5.6 trillion surplus. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office projected a $3.6 trillion deficit over the next 10 years.
Deceptions that got us into Iraq have been followed by fudged budgets and repeated dippings into the till for special appropriations. Now that they hold the pursestrings, the neocons are reckless spenders. Combined with their anti-tax convictions, it casts a long economic shadow. That's a thorn in the side of the RINO's (Republicans in Name Only), the neocons have alienated, who are also uneasy about faked intelligence, constitutional oversight in the bedroom, interventionist foreign policy.
Fiscal responsibility is a strong image that fits in well with a sense of ethics and principle that the left represents. This is a perfect moment to hammer the righteous right with their no-end-in-sight spending, put to rest the ghost of "tax and spend" for once and for all.
Reclaiming the word "liberal", on the other hand, requires another strategy, in my view. The roots of the word in Old English to the idea of generosity. Webster calls this "open-handed."
Is it possible to be both generous and responsible? To say yes and to say no? Every day, each one of us struggles with that dilemma.
Liberals are inclined to err on the side of generosity to those who are hurt or struggling. At the same time want firm limits set on the powerful.
One of my favorite bits of bumper-sticker poetry is:
"It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."
What are our core values? What does it mean to be a liberal? I hear over and over that the Democrats have no vision. Those of us on the democratic wing of the democratic party are clear about our vision, and have been for a long time. What we need to do is speak out.