When George W. Bush, our current President, ran for the White House in the year 2000, he announced that his campaign was in conformance with the will of God. No one knows how Bush came into this knowledge, but apparently Bush prevailed and became our 43rd President.
I do not wish to court disaster by a derogatory statement about religion but I would say that George Bush’s election in the year 2000 had much more to do with the predilections of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia than with some deity. Non-religious observers such as myself are left to conclude that George Bush and the eminent Justice of the Supreme Court, Mr. Scalia, were both motivated by God and acted in his or her best wishes.
Not long after Mr. Bush assumed the Presidency, he launched the war to invade Iraq. If you remember, that war is still going on and there have been countless casualties and it has contributed heavily to the demise of the American economy. When Bush was told that the former National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, and Bush’s own father, George H. W. Bush, thought it was folly to try to occupy Baghdad, Bush replied that his father could say whatever he wanted but in a matter such as this, George W. relied on a “higher father.” Because men have only one father, objective observers must be left to conclude that in this case Bush was referring again to God.
Mr. Bush’s war in Iraq shows no sign of coming to a conclusion in the immediate future. The only conclusion that some of us can draw is that apparently God makes mistakes also. I would prefer to believe that this was Mr. Bush’s mistake and that God had very little to do with that war or any other turmoil.
Now we have Sarah Palin, who is the Governor of Alaska and was the recent Vice Presidential candidate for the Republican Party. In an interview with Matt Lauer of NBC News, Governor Palin had a unique request of God. She apparently believes that there are doors of opportunity to higher office and has implored God to not let her pass up some such door. She has said that if God identifies a viable objective, she will “plow” through such doors. An objective observer such as myself is given to wonderment at what Governor Palin has in mind. Was such a door of opportunity provided when Ms. Palin went on her shopping spree at the expensive stores in the lower 48? I have no idea but clearly the Governor of Alaska must be dressed appropriately when she knocks on these doors that God controls.
In the recent campaign for the Presidential nomination, none of the Democrats said that they were being guided by the divine hand of God, nor did Senator McCain. For that, they are to be commended and it is my guess that it is quite likely that the doors that Governor Palin forgot to open will remain locked tight when she pursues the Presidential nomination in 2012.
But no matter how you cut it, it seems that the Republicans have a lock on God’s thoughts and earthlings such as myself are left to wonder whether the Democrats are infidels. Your old essayist hardly believes that such is the case. And he hopes also that whatever gods there are will respond favorably to Mr. Obama as he takes over this badly tattered economy as its steward for the next four years. I don’t presume to know what is on God’s mind but I fervently hope that his or her thoughts and actions are favorable.
E. E. CARR
November 16, 2008
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God was pretty cool with Obama from ’08-’12, I guess. We’ll see how he feels about Trump. As far as I can tell, Trump isn’t even particularly about paying lip service to the godly crowd. The closest that he’s gotten (relying purely on my memory), is a common soundbite about how his two favorite books are the bible, and ‘The Art of the Deal.’ I’m sure that Trump feels that god should consider Himself lucky that the bible made it into such a prestigious list.