The Messianic President

NYT magazine offers "Without a Doubt", a ten-screen discussion of Bush and how his faith motivates his decisions. It's from Ron Suskind, the author of "The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill". Suskind was the senior national-affairs reporter for The Wall Street Journal from 1993 to 2000.

Some will denounce this as a liberal NYT hit piece. Others - those wouldn't mind seeing, say, Pat Robertson as president - will find comfort in parts of the article. And others will find partial confirmation for what they already suspected.

Excerpts:
''Just in the past few months,'' [Bruce] Bartlett said, ''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.'' Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: ''This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . .

''This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts,'' Bartlett went on to say. ''He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.'' Bartlett paused, then said, ''But you can't run the world on faith.''

...

''When I was first with Bush in Austin, what I saw was a self-help Methodist, very open, seeking,'' (Jim Wallis of the Sojourners) says now. ''What I started to see at this point was the man that would emerge over the next year -- a messianic American Calvinist. He doesn't want to hear from anyone who doubts him.''

...Every few months, a report surfaces of the president using strikingly Messianic language, only to be dismissed by the White House. Three months ago, for instance, in a private meeting with Amish farmers in Lancaster County, Pa., Bush was reported to have said, ''I trust God speaks through me.'' In this ongoing game of winks and nods, a White House spokesman denied the president had specifically spoken those words, but noted that ''his faith helps him in his service to people.''

...Talk of the faith-based initiative, [Joseph Gildenhorn, a top contributor] said, makes him ''a little uneasy.'' Many conservative evangelicals ''feel they have a direct line from God,'' he said, and feel Bush is divinely chosen.

''I think he's religious, I think he's a born-again, I don't think, though, that he feels that he's been ordained by God to serve the country.'' Gildenhorn paused, then said, ''But you know, I really haven't discussed it with him.''

A regent I spoke to later and who asked not to be identified told me: ''I'm happy he's certain of victory and that he's ready to burst forth into his second term, but it all makes me a little nervous. There are a lot of big things that he's planning to do domestically, and who knows what countries we might invade or what might happen in Iraq. But when it gets complex, he seems to turn to prayer or God rather than digging in and thinking things through. What's that line? -- the devil's in the details. If you don't go after that devil, he'll come after you.''

...Can the unfinished American experiment in self-governance -- sputtering on the watery fuel of illusion and assertion -- deal with something as nuanced as the subtleties of one man's faith? What, after all, is the nature of the particular conversation the president feels he has with God -- a colloquy upon which the world now precariously turns?

That very issue is what Jim Wallis wishes he could sit and talk about with George W. Bush. That's impossible now, he says. He is no longer invited to the White House.

''Faith can cut in so many ways,'' he said. ''If you're penitent and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us reach for something higher than ourselves. That can be a powerful thing, a thing that moves us beyond politics as usual, like Martin Luther King did. But when it's designed to certify our righteousness -- that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self-criticism aside. There's no reflection.

''Where people often get lost is on this very point,'' he said after a moment of thought. ''Real faith, you see, leads us to deeper reflection and not -- not ever -- to the thing we as humans so very much want.''

And what is that?

''Easy certainty.''

Comments

Look guys in the white house who talk about God and God talks Back, its time for the funny Farm
or world war 3.

Bruce Bartlett is a hack in economics propaganda who makes old Pravda writers proud. He is big on open borders and outsourcing. About outsourcing he holds the following opinions: 1. it is very good for us, 2. it is unavoidable and will grow 3. it affects a very small number of jobs and that number will decline 4. outsourcing is declining.

In short = Don't worry, be happy.

Wacjo, you should be ashamed to cite this hack.