Reading notes

Frank writes concerning George W. Bush: Faith in the White House, an upcoming DVD that is “being specifically marketed in ‘head to head’ partisan opposition to ‘Fahrenheit 9/11.’” How I wish this movie were intended as satire, but I think its makers intend seriousness, whereas what they achieve (if Frank’s assessment is accurate) sounds pretty much like the dictionary definition of blasphemy.

This movie aspires to be “The Passion of the Bush,” and it succeeds.

More than any other campaign artifact, it clarifies the hard-knuckles rationale of the president’s vote-for-me-or-face-Armageddon re-election message. It transforms the president that the Democrats deride as a “fortunate son” of privilege into a prodigal son with the “moral clarity of an old-fashioned biblical prophet.” Its Bush is not merely a sincere man of faith but God’s essential and irreplaceable warrior on Earth. … As for the actual president, he is shown with a flag for a backdrop in a split-screen tableau with Jesus. The message isn’t subtle: they were separated at birth. …

“Will George W. Bush be allowed to finish the battle against the forces of evil that threaten our very existence?” Such is the portentous question posed at the film’s conclusion by its narrator … Anyone who stands in the way of Mr. Bush completing his godly battle, of course, is a heretic. Facts on the ground in Iraq don’t matter. Rational arguments mustered in presidential debates don’t matter. Logic of any kind is a nonstarter. …

The propagandists of “Faith in the White House” argue, as others have, that the president’s invocation of religion in the public sphere … is consistent with the civic spirituality practiced by his antecedents, from the founding fathers to Bill Clinton. It’s not. Past presidents have rarely, if ever, claimed such godlike infallibility. Mr. Bush never admits to making a mistake; even his premature “Mission Accomplished” victory lap wasn’t in error, as he recently told Bill O’Reilly. …

It’s not just Mr. Bush’s self-deification that separates him from the likes of Lincoln, however; it’s his chosen fashion of Christianity. … His view of faith as a Manichaean scheme of blacks and whites to be acted out in a perpetual war against evil is synergistic with the violent poetics of the best-selling “Left Behind” novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins and Mel Gibson’s cinematic bloodfest. …

“George W. Bush: Faith in the White House” must be seen because it shows how someone like General Boykin can stay in his job even in failure and why Mr. Bush feels divinely entitled to keep his job even as we stand on the cusp of an abyss in Iraq. In this pious but not humble worldview, faith, or at least a certain brand of it, counts more than competence, and a biblical mission, or at least a simplistic, blunderbuss facsimile of one, counts more than the secular goal of waging an effective, focused battle against an enemy as elusive and cunning as terrorists.

Brilliant wordsmithing. Thanks, Frank.

I see no way to interpret this worldview other than Jesus’ warning is being fulfilled again in our hearing … and some went out anyway:

Be on your guard and be careful that you are not led astray; for many will come in My name appropriating to themselves the name Messiah which belongs to Me, saying, I am He! and, The time is at hand! Do not go out after them.

Steve captures what breaks my heart about all this (I added the link to further info):

Any time that religous people place their faith in secular authority, they are going to face severe disappointment. Because Bush is so religious that he almost never goes to church services. He uses religion as a tool, not as an article of faith.

The disillusionment, grief, and remorse at the damage being done in Jesus’ hijacked name, when it comes, is going to be overwhelming.

[via Steve]