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Not Eudora
Divided
by God If the attacks of 9/11
weren’t enough to focus my mind on the leadership of George W Bush, the
possibility of losing two young friends in A thousand young Americans have already been lost in this war. Many of these deaths, and those of thousands of Iraqis, have been the result of wishful or even nonexistent war-planning by the Bush Administration. Whether this war will end in Democracy or disaster I can not predict. The war’s affects are also being felt back home. America has never been less safe. In the wake of 9/11 the nation was remarkably united. But now, three years later, we are almost as divided as we were during the Vietnam Era. Ironically, George Bush promised the American people he would be a “uniter not a divider” when he campaigned in 2000. Yet once he was elected George Bush aggressively pursued one of the most divisive, political agendas in memory. While Americans are busy
fighting amongst themselves the young people of the Middle East, who once viewed
America as a shining star, now listen to a man who has called for jihad against
the United States. Incredibly, the President has not only turned his attention
away from Osama bin Ladin, the mastermind of 9/11, but he has managed to create
a rival for bin Ladin in Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. What
has George Bush been thinking? I suspect that George W Bush
has been preoccupied from his first day as President with avoiding his
father’s fate and becoming a one-term President. To that end he imitated the
more popular Ronald Reagan. In doing so he glued himself to the religious wing
of the Republican Party far more than Reagan ever did. He also tried to avoid a
slow economy like the one that dogged his Father. To this end he passed deficit
inducing tax breaks, especially for the rich. After the war commenced he
continued to borrow massively to keep the economy stimulated. He did not trust
Americans, at least not rich Americans,
to sacrifice their tax cuts so that we could wage a costly war. His calculation
failed and our economy is still struggling. Worse, the debt Bush has incurred
will soon threaten the federal entitlements of the retiring baby boomers. Today George W Bush faces the
American public with a massive debt, a poorly run war and a sputtering economy. The
only case he has been able to make for reelection, in the dangerous times he
helped create, comes twisted from a famous FDR quote. The only thing to
recommend Bush is fear itself. It is not surprising that a troubled President would turn to God in such a time of trial. It is, however, surprising that a President would turn to God not for solace but as a means to win reelection. I can think of no other American President who has so baldly invoked God’s name to win an election as has George W Bush. The American Founders would be
horrified. The US Constitution scrupulously makes no mention of any deity. The
First Amendment even forbids the nation from designating a state religion. In
1790 The evangelical leaders who are pressing for Bush’s reelection are not doing so in a vacuum. The Republican National Committee has paid a David Barton to speak at 300 RNC sponsored meetings of Evangelical ministers. Mr. Barton has told these ministers that they have a right to tell their congregations, from the pulpit, to vote for President Bush. Mr. Barton is a “Christian
Reconstructionist.” He believes that the Founding Father’s never wanted a
separation of Church and State! What Mr. Barton wants, what he has been paid by
the Republican Party to preach, is the Christian equivalent of what Osama bin
Ladin has been telling his audience in the Islamic World: That God and Nation
are one. This political heresy is as divisive in the Islamic world today as it
is in the free world. I will not vote for any
Presidential candidate who uses God to divide Welty is a small time politician who lets it all hang out at: www.snowbizz.com
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By Harry Welty