Published on Thursday, August 30, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
In The Name of Sincerity: Politics, Corporations, and… Revolution?by Hank Edson
The Sincerity Question We Don’t Need to AskFor the last seven years, we have been asking ourselves, “Does George W. Bush really believe the stuff he says.” For example, while campaigning for office, George W. Bush reportedly told a group of supporters in 1999, “I believe God wants me to be president.” In July of 2004, he re-asserted this faith, stating, “I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.” When Bob Woodward asked Bush if he asked his father for advice regarding going to war with Iraq, Bush replied: “He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength. There’s a higher Father that I appeal to.”
The sincerity question is beside the point when it comes to George W. Bush, however. Time and again, pundits have essentially defended the President by asserting their opinion that he actually believes that he is a vehicle of God’s will and that his connection with God is a reliable means of directing the course of our nation. The implied logic behind such defenses goes as follows. If Bush believes what he says, then he is not a corrupt and manipulative politician engaging in the worst kind of hypocrisy and abuse of the political process. Instead, he is a legitimate participant in the public debate regarding what is the best course for our democracy. Accordingly, his views must be taken seriously.
This defense is a distraction from the real issue. The real issue is that the policies Bush seeks to advance in the name of God are in direct conflict with our democratic principles. Because they are in direct conflict with our democratic principles they are in direct conflict with the interests of the American people. The harm these policies cause us is evident even without invoking democratic principles, but the point of invoking them is that doing so allows us to definitively establish that Bush’s point of view is NOT legitimately democratic. It may be voiced in a democratic political process, but it may not be approved by people who espouse a democratic worldview. Indeed, we who hold a democratic worldview have a duty to defend it by condemning the worldview Bush has been asserting in his exercise of political power.
We believe the president’s strength and power comes from the people. Whether the people express God’s will, we do not bother to determine. We don’t need to know. One thing is sure, however, we reject the idea that the president may put aside the will of the people in favor of his private hypothesis about what God wants him to do.
Of course, when a person claims to be a vehicle of God’s will, that doesn’t necessarily mean the person is aware of how God’s is using him. It doesn’t mean that God’s will is to use Bush as a vehicle for wisdom. If God speaks through George W. Bush, I would venture to guess that he does so in the same way he speaks through Hurricane Katrina. It’s definitely not something to run a campaign on: “Vote for me-God has appointed me to be a disaster of Class Five proportions!”
One more time, then, we must repeat, it doesn’t matter whether the idiot believes his own words; his words remain the height of idiocy. ......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/30/3504/
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
