Letters to the Editor
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Christianity?
This is American Christianity, the only form of the religion where personal wealth and immoderate greed are no obstacle to entering the gates of Heaven - the proverbial needle's eye having been enlarged so much that you can drive a goldplated limousine through it, let alone a camel. The only form of spirituality where you can keep your bank account while cleansing your soul. Born again - lucky me! - into exactly the same big inheritance! What an improvement on the Hindu version of reincarnation!
You can see these American evangelicals with their 1950s suits and ties on the streets of Europe, of Asia, of anywhere, trying to teach words without meaning to people who generally don't understand a word they say, since they make no effort to learn the local language. And those who do speak English are too embarrassed to state the obvious: "what you people are preaching is not Christianity but a timefrozen portrait of America as you want it to be, in which everyone dresses the same, acts the same, and thinks the same."
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Too funny for words
What a hoot reading the account of W's finding Jesus in the coffeeshop of a Holiday Inn in Midland, Texas. I bet W said "Let's party!" afterwards. Too bad he didn't move from salvation to his true station in life, the one calling to which he was qualified by his own lights: assistant manager of a Taco Bell In Midland.
The enlightening part of this account is what it adds to our picture of Georgie as a physical coward. A failure as a Little League catcher because "he blinked every time the guy swung the bat." Being stared down by his father when he challenged him to go mano a mano, until Georgie "walked away," afraid to take a poke at the old man. This fits well with Georgie the Texas "rancher" who is afraid of horses--even the brain dead Reagan could sit smartly on a horse. All culminating in Georgie's stupendous display of cowardliness on 9/11, when he sat for seven minutes with his thumb up his ass before hightailing it back and forth across the country looking for a place to hide.
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This form of Christianity
should come as no surprise to anyone who knows how Americans act and think.
As previous posters have commented, true spiritual growth is a lengthy and difficult process. It's no wonder that the "presto-change-o" brand of Christianity appeals to Americans. It takes no work, no deed, and no major changes in one's life. It's the spiritual and mental equivalent of an impulse buy.
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George Bush doesn't act Christian
He may think he is following Jesus or God but he has never followed the 10 commandments (ever heard of thou shall not kill???). He is one of the least Christian-like people, I've ever heard of. He give Christianity, especially evangelical Christianity a bad name. How he sleeps at night is beyond me. I think he will end up in the same place at Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, etc - all killers and torturers.
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no, it's not all about Garry Owen this time
I've changed my mind since last night Mr. Unger. It was unfair to say I couldn't read another word about our Chimp in Charge. You are doing a good service writing what you did. I think it's important to get all this biographical stuff on the record because when Bush finally takes that last Air Force One ride down to Crawford or where ever, the offer of book deals is going to be rolling in for him and it will be his choice who will ghost his memoirs. I guarantee he won't be writing it himself, the semi-literate, ADD addled, lazy frat boy. So the more books that are out there and available to act as an antidote to all his crap the better.
I feel very safe in predicting that George W. Bush is not going to be able to lie his way into a favorable legacy no matter how many scholars and clergy his daddy's estate can buy off.
Right off the bat, the Yale Cheerleader, Vietnam War No-Show, Phony Oil Man, Phony businessman, Caligula-like Governor and absolute utter miserable failure as president, can't find a decent home for his so-called "Presidential Library."
Think about that for a moment. I can see why Yale wouldn't host it. They had to eat enough shit just to accept this C- student and run him through there and get him out before he embarrassed them more than they already did by doing his long-suffering father G.H.W. Bush a solid.
But you might think the UT would surely want a Presidential Library on campus, wouldn't you? Uh, no dice. They'd sooner tear down the Texas Tower and rename Big Bevo "Osama" than host a G. W. Bush library. Well then, why not Texas A&M? After all, wasn't Bushy-boy a big time O'wl Man? eh, not so much. Arbusto went bust-o, Harken Oil left a whole lot of Texas drillers holding a stack of bills left unpaid when Bushy dumped his stock and ran for cover.
OK, so no Texas A&M either. How 'bout Rice University in Houston? Ugh! Too "librul." Artists and queers and writers, oh my! Well then, how 'bout Del Mar College in "Corpus"? Oooo, no! They's Catholic!
Well where then?
The Amarillo College of Cosmetology and Mortuary Science offered, but then figured they had too many hairdoos and stiffs laying around so they backed out.
Enter Laura's alma mater, Southern Methodist University. Perfect! Only 10,000 students and not enough professors worth keeping. So if they walked out in protest, they could hire more.
But anyway, I digress. Bush's legacy? Well, you won't need a big library. The material records and papers from his eight year reign of stupidity will have either been destroyed, or classified Top Secret. But I hope they build the gift shop first. I want one of those Bush tee-shirts that makes him look like Alfred E. Neumann.
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honestly
Maybe this has been said before, but it seems to me that if you can't be honest about your own religious experiences, then your word can't be trusted about anything and you call those very same experiences into question. Was nobody thinking (Karen Hughes et al) that perhaps the real people who were there when Bush accepted Jesus would tell their version of the story? And did they really expect Billy Graham to lie?