{"id":8748,"date":"2006-04-25T19:57:43","date_gmt":"2006-04-26T02:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/04\/25\/almighty-alrighty.html"},"modified":"2006-04-25T19:57:43","modified_gmt":"2006-04-26T02:57:43","slug":"almighty_alrigh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/04\/25\/almighty_alrigh.html","title":{"rendered":"Almighty, alrighty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lots of moans<\/a> and snarks<\/a> over Dubya’s latest foreign policy comments<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Bush also explained, in unusually stark terms, how his belief in God influences his foreign policy. “I base a lot of my foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true,” he said. “One, I believe there’s an Almighty. And, secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody’s soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live, to be free.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The idea being that Bush-as-God-believer is a sign of either his uber-cynical manipulation of the electorate (which may well be true — piety is the first refuge of a scoundrel) or, more pointedly, a sign that he’s just a crack-pot lunatic who’s obviously incompetent to lead this country because he believes in Big Sky Heaven Father.<\/p>\n

Wanna bet I could pretty quickly find quotes by FDR, Truman, Eisenhower and JFK that said pretty much the same thing? At what point did belief in God or even expressing a faith in what someone believes God wants suddenly become a symptom of idiocy?<\/p>\n

Bush may be a lot of undesirable things as a president — and I’m not necessarily sold on his being as devout and God-fearing as he makes himself out to be — but … belief in God is not, per se,<\/em> a sign of incompetence to be Commander-in-Chief or Head of State, regardless of, say, sentiments like this:<\/p>\n

His brain has been so corrupted with his silly God beliefs that it\u2019s become reality immune. A better example of the crippling effects of religious belief is hard to find.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hell, I think it would make a lot more sense for folks to criticize the efforts of Bush, the GOP, and their religious right supporters to suppress <\/em>in this country the very freedom the desire for which he touts as one of the Almighty’s great gifts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lots of moans and snarks over Dubya’s latest foreign policy comments: Bush also explained, in unusually stark terms, how his belief in God influences his foreign policy. “I base a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,27,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha","category-religion","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1815,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/04\/25\/things_left_uns.html","url_meta":{"origin":8748,"position":0},"title":"Things left unsaid","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 25-Apr-02 5:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So, according to CNN, Prince Abdullah is coming to Dubya's ranch with stern words . Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah delivered a stern warning to President Bush on Thursday about the...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2594,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/05\/30\/sigh_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":8748,"position":1},"title":"Sigh.","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 30-May-02 12:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Adam noted this a few days ago, but at the time I could only rely on some bad links to foreign papers. Now Dubya's latest gaffe is available in translation....","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7090,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/10\/31\/for_the_record.html","url_meta":{"origin":8748,"position":2},"title":"For the record","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 31-Oct-04 6:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Granted that its clear intent is to show that the Bush administration is a bunch of evil buffoons, this timeline of goings-on over Dubya's presidency is useful as we hurtle...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2004"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2004","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2004"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5466,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/03\/07\/kerrying_the_me.html","url_meta":{"origin":8748,"position":3},"title":"Kerrying the message on defense policy","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 7-Mar-04 8:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting analysis of an interesting John Kerry speech on defense and foreign policy. Worth reading. There are aspects of it that certainly sound pretty good. And aspects that sound...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7067,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/11\/03\/root_causes.html","url_meta":{"origin":8748,"position":4},"title":"Root causes","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 3-Nov-04 2:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, now for some expanded, yet still uninformed, speculation. Why did Bush beat Kerry? And what does that mean in four years? Four big reasons seemed to be the focus...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2004"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2004","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2004"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5457,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/03\/08\/covert_support.html","url_meta":{"origin":8748,"position":5},"title":"Covert support","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 8-Mar-04 3:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"If, as Kerry claims, various \"foreign leaders\" are supporting him in his candidacy from behind the scenes, is that a good thing, or a bad thing? Without naming anybody, Kerry...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}