I about to get some mad but Lord does it make me proud...
Destiny's Child
George W. Bush and his God
Everyone who knows him will tell you the same thing. George W Bush is a deeply religious man. That's not to say he's pious. His easy nicknames for journalists, his tangled baseball analogies, his constant outbursts of chuckles do not connote a man of solemn devotion. Compared to the ostentatious sanctimony of Jimmy Carter, Bush seems urbane, even sassy. But this shouldn't fool you. Bush believes that he was personally saved by God from a life of heavy drinking and irresponsibility. From the day Billy Graham took a walk with him and urged him to start his life anew, Bush has been a different man. And since September 11, he has been a different man altogether.
No-one seems to doubt the spiritual context for this. The day of his speech to Congress on September 20, Bush did not spend the afternoon conferring with aides or even speech-writers. He spent it with religious leaders of all denominations. And at the end of the day, as Fred Barnes first reported, a telling moment occurred. James Merritt, president of the Southern Baptist Association, told the president that, "I believe you are God's man for this hour. God's hand is on you." The president nodded. "I accept the responsibility," he replied. Whatever others think, this is what Bush believes. He believes it not in a grandiose or messianic way. But he believes it, according to many around him, as one of those odd occurrences that the Almighty sometimes decides to bestow on the unlikeliest of people.
He was like this before September 11. His Inaugural speech, when you look back on it, was full of religious imagery. He spoke of an "angel riding in the storm." He invoked "a Power larger than ourselves, Who creates us equal in His image." He spoke of "history's Author, Who fills time and eternity with His purpose." These words come naturally to him. Bush begins most days reading the Bible and is as regular with his private prayers as with the treadmill. "I don't think anyone out there truly understands how important his faith is to this man," one of his aides told me a few months back. Perhaps part of this is due to Bush's life-story. He was a wayward son, whose sister died of leukemia when he was a child, thrusting him into the first child role, while his mother grieved and leant on him. He never expected to be in public life and goofed off for years. His younger brother, Jeb, was supposed to be the next president, not W. And from then on, surprise after surprise. He was not expected to beat an incumbent vice-president at a time of unparalleled prosperity. He did not win the popular vote, and asked himself, according to some aides, what it meant that he had become president in such awkward circumstances. He carried on as if the riddle of his good fortune and awesome responsibility would at some point be solved for him.
September 11 solved it. "I think, in his frame, this is what God has asked him to do," a Bush friend told the New York Times. "It offers him enormous clarity." Another friend opined that Bush had "begun a new life that is inextricably bound to Sept. 11 and all that it implies." Look at the language Bush has employed. He uses the word "evil" with constant emphasis. Osama bin Laden is an "evil man," the "evil one." As Fred Barnes noticed, the September 20 speech was also an exercise in psychological projection: "In our grief and anger we have found our mission and our moment," Bush said. "The country is called to defend freedom." No-one needs to ask who had done the calling. Or who, apart from the country, had been called.
No-one should mistake the faith of George W. with more conventional Christian Right belief. There are times when Bush seems almost embarrassingly ecumenical. One of his most beloved policy initiatives is the creation of "faith-based" social policy, harnessing religious groups of all kinds to buttress and supplement government programs, from Jews to Muslims and Mormons. He has made outreach to Catholics a keystone of his electoral agenda and is personally pro-life. But, apart from his campaign disaster of giving a speech at the uber-protestant Bob Jones University, he has bent over backwards to avoid denominational edge. He has insisted that the focus of pro-life work should not be imposing laws but changing hearts. He has lived the Christian doctrine of not demonizing homosexuals - by having many gay friends and appointing openly gay people to administration posts. His early insistence after September 11 that American Muslims deserved respect and protection was not merely good politics and good policy. It was heartfelt. Perhaps too heartfelt: Bush's admirable desire to describe this war as one with no religious content has led him to ignore some of the Islamic extremism that has fueled the terrorists and even now permeates through many Western mosques. But this blindness is a forgivable one. Like Tony Blair, we ignore this man's spiritual core at our peril.
Its main consequence right now has been what insiders are calling a laser-beam concentration on the war on terrorism. Bush believes this is now his mission. It is not a job; it is not an adventure. It is a vocation. Although there will doubtless be Congressional skirmishes in due course, Bush seems determined to avoid any hostility with the Democrats. This has many conservatives worried, and it may indeed mean more public spending than is prudent or Supreme Court picks that tack safely to the center. All this is, in his mind, must be subjugated to what God has called him to.
And this, I think, explains the uncanny composure of the man. No president since John Kennedy in 1963 has been put under such intense stress in a national emergency. Yet Bush seems calm and happy. He doesn't stay up all night; he exercises and plays with his dog. His under-rated wife plays a part in this. And so too does Bush's well-honed executive skills. He knows how to delegate. Above all, like many former drunks, he knows psychologically how to delegate to a higher power. In this sense, I don't think it's too great a stretch to see this war as a religious one. It's between the frenzied fanaticism of one man, and the calm, sustaining faith of another. I have no doubt which one will crack first.
October 28, 2001, The Sunday Times of London ("Victory is an Article of Faith for Bush").
copyright © 2001 Andrew Sullivan
Destiny's Child
George W. Bush and his God
Everyone who knows him will tell you the same thing. George W Bush is a deeply religious man. That's not to say he's pious. His easy nicknames for journalists, his tangled baseball analogies, his constant outbursts of chuckles do not connote a man of solemn devotion. Compared to the ostentatious sanctimony of Jimmy Carter, Bush seems urbane, even sassy. But this shouldn't fool you. Bush believes that he was personally saved by God from a life of heavy drinking and irresponsibility. From the day Billy Graham took a walk with him and urged him to start his life anew, Bush has been a different man. And since September 11, he has been a different man altogether.
No-one seems to doubt the spiritual context for this. The day of his speech to Congress on September 20, Bush did not spend the afternoon conferring with aides or even speech-writers. He spent it with religious leaders of all denominations. And at the end of the day, as Fred Barnes first reported, a telling moment occurred. James Merritt, president of the Southern Baptist Association, told the president that, "I believe you are God's man for this hour. God's hand is on you." The president nodded. "I accept the responsibility," he replied. Whatever others think, this is what Bush believes. He believes it not in a grandiose or messianic way. But he believes it, according to many around him, as one of those odd occurrences that the Almighty sometimes decides to bestow on the unlikeliest of people.
He was like this before September 11. His Inaugural speech, when you look back on it, was full of religious imagery. He spoke of an "angel riding in the storm." He invoked "a Power larger than ourselves, Who creates us equal in His image." He spoke of "history's Author, Who fills time and eternity with His purpose." These words come naturally to him. Bush begins most days reading the Bible and is as regular with his private prayers as with the treadmill. "I don't think anyone out there truly understands how important his faith is to this man," one of his aides told me a few months back. Perhaps part of this is due to Bush's life-story. He was a wayward son, whose sister died of leukemia when he was a child, thrusting him into the first child role, while his mother grieved and leant on him. He never expected to be in public life and goofed off for years. His younger brother, Jeb, was supposed to be the next president, not W. And from then on, surprise after surprise. He was not expected to beat an incumbent vice-president at a time of unparalleled prosperity. He did not win the popular vote, and asked himself, according to some aides, what it meant that he had become president in such awkward circumstances. He carried on as if the riddle of his good fortune and awesome responsibility would at some point be solved for him.
September 11 solved it. "I think, in his frame, this is what God has asked him to do," a Bush friend told the New York Times. "It offers him enormous clarity." Another friend opined that Bush had "begun a new life that is inextricably bound to Sept. 11 and all that it implies." Look at the language Bush has employed. He uses the word "evil" with constant emphasis. Osama bin Laden is an "evil man," the "evil one." As Fred Barnes noticed, the September 20 speech was also an exercise in psychological projection: "In our grief and anger we have found our mission and our moment," Bush said. "The country is called to defend freedom." No-one needs to ask who had done the calling. Or who, apart from the country, had been called.
No-one should mistake the faith of George W. with more conventional Christian Right belief. There are times when Bush seems almost embarrassingly ecumenical. One of his most beloved policy initiatives is the creation of "faith-based" social policy, harnessing religious groups of all kinds to buttress and supplement government programs, from Jews to Muslims and Mormons. He has made outreach to Catholics a keystone of his electoral agenda and is personally pro-life. But, apart from his campaign disaster of giving a speech at the uber-protestant Bob Jones University, he has bent over backwards to avoid denominational edge. He has insisted that the focus of pro-life work should not be imposing laws but changing hearts. He has lived the Christian doctrine of not demonizing homosexuals - by having many gay friends and appointing openly gay people to administration posts. His early insistence after September 11 that American Muslims deserved respect and protection was not merely good politics and good policy. It was heartfelt. Perhaps too heartfelt: Bush's admirable desire to describe this war as one with no religious content has led him to ignore some of the Islamic extremism that has fueled the terrorists and even now permeates through many Western mosques. But this blindness is a forgivable one. Like Tony Blair, we ignore this man's spiritual core at our peril.
Its main consequence right now has been what insiders are calling a laser-beam concentration on the war on terrorism. Bush believes this is now his mission. It is not a job; it is not an adventure. It is a vocation. Although there will doubtless be Congressional skirmishes in due course, Bush seems determined to avoid any hostility with the Democrats. This has many conservatives worried, and it may indeed mean more public spending than is prudent or Supreme Court picks that tack safely to the center. All this is, in his mind, must be subjugated to what God has called him to.
And this, I think, explains the uncanny composure of the man. No president since John Kennedy in 1963 has been put under such intense stress in a national emergency. Yet Bush seems calm and happy. He doesn't stay up all night; he exercises and plays with his dog. His under-rated wife plays a part in this. And so too does Bush's well-honed executive skills. He knows how to delegate. Above all, like many former drunks, he knows psychologically how to delegate to a higher power. In this sense, I don't think it's too great a stretch to see this war as a religious one. It's between the frenzied fanaticism of one man, and the calm, sustaining faith of another. I have no doubt which one will crack first.
October 28, 2001, The Sunday Times of London ("Victory is an Article of Faith for Bush").
copyright © 2001 Andrew Sullivan
