The Marriage of Church and State
I have a conservative friend (or two) and they've been quick to point out that the nomination of Harriet Miers is a huge disappointment because, in their opinion, Miers is not a substantial enough candidate to warrant a Supreme Court nomination. Their feelings have been backed by plenty of other notable conservatives, among them, George Will.
Will, who appeared on This Week with George Stephanopoulis last Sunday, stood behind his earlier comment, that if Bush had asked for the names of 10,000 qualified potential nominees for the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers would not have appeared on anybody's list.
When asked why he thought Bush chose Miers for the high court, Will (and my conservative friends) all seemed to agree that it is because George Bush wants to avoid a fight. This is an interesting assumption, because if true (which I think is debatable) it presupposes that liberals will blindly accept the Miers nomination, despite the fact that there is virtually no information on which to rely to assess her qualifications for such a prominent appointment.
She's never been a judge, and though she has been White House Counsel since Alberto Gonzales was appointed Attorney General, her work has gone largely unnoticed. Sure, she battled the sexism that made all women of her generation work that much harder to succeed, and yes, she is a close personal friend to the president. But do those two things qualify her to sit on the highest court in the land? I think not. And I'm not alone.
But why, then, did President Bush nominate Harriet Miers? Here's my theory: he wants Harriet Miers to act as an extension of himself. He's not looking for a stellar thinker--he's looking for a loyal follower--who is as fanatical about evangelical Christianity, and the need to spread the word of God, as he is. Bush is seeking the very thing John Roberts is not: a Supreme Court nominee who will use the Bible, not the Constitution, as her guidebook.
Harriet Miers is not just a close friend of George W. Bush; she's a woman who, bound by religious zealotry, is determined to push her religious agenda. She is also the kind of woman who will staunchly stand by her man (meaning George W. Bush). In other words: she's just the kind of woman Bush likes best.
While pundits debate her merits, another loyal supporter and practitioner of the Tammy Wynette philosophy, First Lady Laura Bush, is tackling the resistance to the Miers' appointment by slapping the label of "sexist" on those who question Miers' qualifications. Mrs. Bush is quoted in Wednesday's Washington Post as saying that it's "possible" that questions about Miers's intellectual qualifications are "sexist" in nature. Mrs. Bush, a graduate of the Karl Rove School of Understated Slander, knows that a suggestion and a smile are more powerful than outright condemnation, and she's workin' it like a pro.
Meanwhile, nobody conservative or liberal is talking about what I believe is really going on here. That is, that our president is pushing a nominee to the Supreme Court who will work actively to promote a "culture of life" that includes reversing Roe v. Wade thus shoving George W. Bush's personal vision of democracy down our throats.
In short, George Bush is attempting to put in place an unqualified lackey whose sole loyalty will be to him and his twisted version of Christianity. I offer up, as evidence, some interesting moments in our President's history:
- When the tragedy of 9.11 occurred, President Bush used the word "crusade" and was strongly criticized for inciting the anger of Muslims the world over. He immediately stopped using the word, but he hasn't stopped preaching the message.
- In a New York Times article from April of 2004, David Sanger wrote that Bush "described an America chosen by God to spread freedom. He never used the word 'crusade' . . . But he described one."
- In October of 2004, Ron Suskind, in his New York Times Magazine piece Without a Doubt, quoted Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush. Bartlett said, ''Just in the past few months, I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.''
- On January 24, 2005, the Washington Post printed an article titled "Bush Hails Progress Toward 'Culture of Life'" in which Bush is quoted as saying the following, during a speech given at an anti-abortion rally: "'The America of our dreams, where every child is welcomed . . . in life and protected in law, may still be some ways away, but even from the far side of the river . . . we can see its glimmerings.'"
- On October 7, 2005, Bush was the subject of an extremely disturbing article in the UK's Guardian. Here's an excerpt:
George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month.
Mr. Bush revealed the extent of his religious fervour when he met a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did.'"
Mr Bush went on: "And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And, by God, I'm gonna do it."
George W. Bush believes he is a modern-day prophet, and as such, he is obsessed with his own self-importance. Having given up drugs and alcohol, he has channeled his innate compulsivity into a self-delusional obsession with being a chosen spokesperson for the man upstairs.
Like Church of Latter Day Saints founder, Joseph Smith, a former fraud and charlatan who was booted out of one city after another for pretending to have skills he did not have, our President has taken a string of pathetic failures and turned them into a campaign to convince the world that he is somehow a conduit for the word of God.
The very fact that he is the President is all the proof Bush needs to continue to feed his own perverted concept of reality. He is the leader of the so-called "free world." By failing to see through his psychological disorder, the American people have validated his sick and twisted concept of himself and his place in the world. He has arrived; and there is no longer any possibility of a rational, sensible, response to his delusions of grandeur.
So, if you want to understand why George W. Bush has nominated an evangelical Christian with no judicial experience to be the next member of the Supreme Court, just listen to what Bush said on October 12, 2005, after an Oval Office meeting with visiting Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski:
"People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers. They want to know Harriet Miers' background. They want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions. And part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion."
Make no mistake, our President is planning a marriage between church and state--and Harriet Miers is the blushing bride-to-be. -- Laurie
Will, who appeared on This Week with George Stephanopoulis last Sunday, stood behind his earlier comment, that if Bush had asked for the names of 10,000 qualified potential nominees for the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers would not have appeared on anybody's list.
When asked why he thought Bush chose Miers for the high court, Will (and my conservative friends) all seemed to agree that it is because George Bush wants to avoid a fight. This is an interesting assumption, because if true (which I think is debatable) it presupposes that liberals will blindly accept the Miers nomination, despite the fact that there is virtually no information on which to rely to assess her qualifications for such a prominent appointment.
She's never been a judge, and though she has been White House Counsel since Alberto Gonzales was appointed Attorney General, her work has gone largely unnoticed. Sure, she battled the sexism that made all women of her generation work that much harder to succeed, and yes, she is a close personal friend to the president. But do those two things qualify her to sit on the highest court in the land? I think not. And I'm not alone.
But why, then, did President Bush nominate Harriet Miers? Here's my theory: he wants Harriet Miers to act as an extension of himself. He's not looking for a stellar thinker--he's looking for a loyal follower--who is as fanatical about evangelical Christianity, and the need to spread the word of God, as he is. Bush is seeking the very thing John Roberts is not: a Supreme Court nominee who will use the Bible, not the Constitution, as her guidebook.
Harriet Miers is not just a close friend of George W. Bush; she's a woman who, bound by religious zealotry, is determined to push her religious agenda. She is also the kind of woman who will staunchly stand by her man (meaning George W. Bush). In other words: she's just the kind of woman Bush likes best.
While pundits debate her merits, another loyal supporter and practitioner of the Tammy Wynette philosophy, First Lady Laura Bush, is tackling the resistance to the Miers' appointment by slapping the label of "sexist" on those who question Miers' qualifications. Mrs. Bush is quoted in Wednesday's Washington Post as saying that it's "possible" that questions about Miers's intellectual qualifications are "sexist" in nature. Mrs. Bush, a graduate of the Karl Rove School of Understated Slander, knows that a suggestion and a smile are more powerful than outright condemnation, and she's workin' it like a pro.
Meanwhile, nobody conservative or liberal is talking about what I believe is really going on here. That is, that our president is pushing a nominee to the Supreme Court who will work actively to promote a "culture of life" that includes reversing Roe v. Wade thus shoving George W. Bush's personal vision of democracy down our throats.
In short, George Bush is attempting to put in place an unqualified lackey whose sole loyalty will be to him and his twisted version of Christianity. I offer up, as evidence, some interesting moments in our President's history:
- When the tragedy of 9.11 occurred, President Bush used the word "crusade" and was strongly criticized for inciting the anger of Muslims the world over. He immediately stopped using the word, but he hasn't stopped preaching the message.
- In a New York Times article from April of 2004, David Sanger wrote that Bush "described an America chosen by God to spread freedom. He never used the word 'crusade' . . . But he described one."
- In October of 2004, Ron Suskind, in his New York Times Magazine piece Without a Doubt, quoted Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush. Bartlett said, ''Just in the past few months, I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.''
- On January 24, 2005, the Washington Post printed an article titled "Bush Hails Progress Toward 'Culture of Life'" in which Bush is quoted as saying the following, during a speech given at an anti-abortion rally: "'The America of our dreams, where every child is welcomed . . . in life and protected in law, may still be some ways away, but even from the far side of the river . . . we can see its glimmerings.'"
- On October 7, 2005, Bush was the subject of an extremely disturbing article in the UK's Guardian. Here's an excerpt:
George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month.
Mr. Bush revealed the extent of his religious fervour when he met a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did.'"
Mr Bush went on: "And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And, by God, I'm gonna do it."
George W. Bush believes he is a modern-day prophet, and as such, he is obsessed with his own self-importance. Having given up drugs and alcohol, he has channeled his innate compulsivity into a self-delusional obsession with being a chosen spokesperson for the man upstairs.
Like Church of Latter Day Saints founder, Joseph Smith, a former fraud and charlatan who was booted out of one city after another for pretending to have skills he did not have, our President has taken a string of pathetic failures and turned them into a campaign to convince the world that he is somehow a conduit for the word of God.
The very fact that he is the President is all the proof Bush needs to continue to feed his own perverted concept of reality. He is the leader of the so-called "free world." By failing to see through his psychological disorder, the American people have validated his sick and twisted concept of himself and his place in the world. He has arrived; and there is no longer any possibility of a rational, sensible, response to his delusions of grandeur.
So, if you want to understand why George W. Bush has nominated an evangelical Christian with no judicial experience to be the next member of the Supreme Court, just listen to what Bush said on October 12, 2005, after an Oval Office meeting with visiting Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski:
"People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers. They want to know Harriet Miers' background. They want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions. And part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion."
Make no mistake, our President is planning a marriage between church and state--and Harriet Miers is the blushing bride-to-be. -- Laurie
posted by LA Fosner at 11:38 AM
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