George McGovern has a question for President Bush: “If God asked you to bombard, invade and occupy Iraq for four years, why did he send an opposite message to the Pope?”
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Open source, procurement, and gov tech.
George McGovern has a question for President Bush: “If God asked you to bombard, invade and occupy Iraq for four years, why did he send an opposite message to the Pope?”
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I love that old man. Tall Timber. Best thing, I’ve read this week.
Next week I’ll be reading ‘Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now. George McGovern and William R.Polk.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070101fabook86151/george-mcgovern-william-r-polk/out-of-iraq-a-practical-plan-for-withdrawal-now.html
He was on Olbermann last night, and he was just as lucid and feisty as ever. I actually saw him in National Airport back in the late 80’s. It was great to see him re-engaged in the national political scene. Isn’t he in his 80’s by now?
What he did in 1972 took an incredible amount of courage. I would imagine his book is a great read, and I plan on picking it up soon.
Wow. I’ll be buying that book tomorrow.
Now, how do we get the president to read it?
To be fair, Bush didn’t claim that God told him to invade Iraq. He just said that he consulted God. As long as McGovern is presuming, I guess it’s fair for us to presume as well. I presume that Bush meant that he prayed about it. The religiously devout that I know pray about things and then hope that God influences their judgment. But I’ve never heard one of them say that God actually “told” them anything.
I like McGovern’s remarks about Bush Sr. though. Wouldn’t it have been nice if little Bush had asked dad what he thought? At least then he would have actually heard a real response.
Actually, he did. He said so four months after the 2003 invasion, while speaking to a Palestinian delegation at Sharm el-Sheikh:
Those comments were categorically denied.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1587122,00.html
“Both the White House and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who was also present at the meeting, deny that Bush ever made such a statement.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabil_Shaath
Just another in a long list of lies that becomes part of the popular culture and is impossible to extricate even after the truth is known. Similar to urban myths. Both sides affected.
Not so quick Smails (and Jon). A denial from Bush’s Press Sec. Scotty McClellan (who was not even at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit where Bush said God spoke to him)is worthless. As in, Scotty says what Bush tells him to say. So, “A long list of lies” has become the best bet for a short descriptor of the Bush Presidency.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43189
As much as I dislike Bush, and as much as he has hinted that God works through him, I highly doubt that he made those statements. This is not only because I don’t think the President claims to speak directly to God, though he might imply it, but rather because I think he or his handlers have learned the lesson from when they referred to his excursion in the Middle East as a crusade: that it would be disastrous to make this an openly religious war.
I don’t give Bush much of the benefit of the doubt, but this one just doesn’t seem plausible, since it’s been denied by both Bush and Abbas.
Besides, Bush isn’t Catholic, nor is he Universalist, so even if he did think that God spoke to him, he probably doesn’t believe that God speaks to the Pope particularly often.
Your timeline is off, though: the statement in question was made just a few months after the invasion of Iraq, before the blowback began.
Bubby, then how do you account for Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who was also present at the meeting, and also denied that Bush made the statement?
Is his denial worthless too?
Jon: I don’t account for the words of Scotty McClellan or Mahmoud Abbas – they are both on the payroll. I do believe that George Bush told George Land of the Southern Baptist Convention that God wanted him to be president, and I am certain that it was instead, the United States Supreme Court that wanted George Bush to be President. Big difference.
I see now. You choose who to believe based on whether their assertions match what you want to believe. That’s convenient.
Personally, I like to have some credible evidence that a person said or did something that they’re accused of. But maybe that’s just me. Hearsay isn’t credible.
It’s also good to know that the USSC is more powerful than God. :-)
Of course, Jon — that’s what we all do. If President Bush declared that the earth is flat, I suspect that the overwhelming majority of his supporters (but, sadly, not all) would agree that he’s wrong. The alternative is to believe (or disbelieve) what somebody says, facts be damned. And that doesn’t make much sense.
you misunderstand. Some willfully accept that Bush made the statement because they really want it to be true, facts be damned, and contradicting evidence be damned.
The trouble, though, is that this isn’t a case of “facts be damned” — we have two groups of people make two conflicting claims, and there are no facts on which we can rely. (Other than, of course, our existing understanding of President Bush’s reliance on religion in making his decisions, such as responding to a question about why he didn’t seek his father’s advice on the matter of invading Iraq by saying that “there is a higher father that I appeal to.”) So it’s really a matter of who we believe is more credible — an assembly of Palestinian leaders or President Bush. Much of the nation finds President Bush not credible, and we we’re inclined to believe this group of people about whom we know virtually nothing because it fits the existing frame about Bush.
Had this been a disagreement over whether President Bush had stated at the meeting (to invent an example) that he made his decision to go to war based on his Ouija board, nobody would believe the group making that claim, because it doesn’t fit the Bush that we know. But because a) the claimed statement is consistent with his understood worldview b) Bush and his administration is known to lie and c) the claimed statement is something that could be harmful to him, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for people to believe that the incident occurred as originally described.
That would make it very difficult to believe President Bush, were it true. But that statement is inconsistent with the facts in this case. Here, you have just three witnesses who have said anything publicly about it – two Palestinian leaders and President Bush. One of the Palestinians is on Bush’s side. So I find it hard to believe el-Sheikh.
By the way, I can personally remember watching every president since Kennedy on TV, and I can’t recall a single one for which millions of Americans wouldn’t say the same thing – “[president] and his administration is known to lie”
:-)