"Bush: I'm God's Delivery Boy"

Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive

Bush's messianic militarism was on full display on March
11, when he addressed, via satellite, the National
Association of Evangelicals Convention in Colorado
Springs.

First, acting as pastor in chief, he said, "You're doing
God's work with conviction and kindness, and, on behalf
of our country, I thank you."

Separation of church and state, anyone?Bush charged right through that wall, citing religion as
his basis for opposing stem-cell research, abortion, and
same-sex marriage.

He also ignored the wall when he returned to his
favorite, post 9/11 theme: that God is calling America
to free the world, and Bush himself is heeding that
call.

"America is a nation with a mission," Bush said, not
afraid, in this crowd, to connote the crusade he is on.

"We're called to fight terrorism around the world," he
said, intentionally using the religious term "called," a
term he has repeatedly invoked over the last two and a
half years.

"As freedom's home and freedom's defender, we are called
to expand the realm of human liberty," he said. Viewing
himself as the Great Liberator, he said, "By our actions
in Afghanistan and Iraq, more than 50 million people
have been liberated from tyranny."

And then he laid the religion on thick: "Yet I know that
liberty is not America's gift to the world-liberty and
freedom are God's gift to every man and woman who lives
in this world."

Follow the logic here: If God's gift is liberty, and if
Bush has liberated millions, then he is God's delivery
boy.

Now while Bush may invigorate himself by aligning his
policies with the presumed wishes of the Almighty, there
is something deeply offensive about foisting this
theology on our constitutionally secular government.

And the tautological conviction that whatever he is
doing he is fulfilling God's will defies democratic
discussion and debate.

With his messianic strivings, Bush may not be satisfied
believing that he has liberated 50 million people. He
may feel it is his religious duty to liberate 22 million
more living in godless North Korea.

The President told Bob Woodward in "Bush at War" that
Kim Jong Il's massive prison complex "appalls me." He
added: "It is visceral. Maybe it's my religion, maybe
it's my-but I feel passionate about this." Toying with
the idea of toppling Kim, Bush said, "I just don't buy"
the argument that we need to worry about the financial
burdens South Korea might have to assume if North Korea
collapses. "Either you believe in freedom, and want to-
and worry about the human condition, or you don't," he
said.

The problem with such black-and-white thinking is that
it could lead Bush to make a rash decision to attack
North Korea.

The toll, according to the Pentagon's own war games,
would be astronomical, perhaps as high as a million. But
notice that Bush did not count the casualties of the
Iraq War or the Afghan War. Everyone there was
liberated, according to his speech, even the dead.