US Diary: our president thinks he's running a theocracy instead of a democracy

1. Apocalyptic President
Even some Republicans are now horrified by the influence Bush has given to the evangelical right
By Sidney Blumenthal

In his latest PR offensive President Bush came to Cleveland, Ohio, on Monday to answer the paramount question on Iraq that he said was on people's minds: "They wonder what I see that they don't." After mentioning "terror" 54 times and "victory" five, dismissing "civil war" twice and asserting that he is "optimistic", he called on a citizen in the audience, who homed in on the invisible meaning of recent events in the light of two books, American Theocracy, by Kevin Phillips, and the book of Revelation. Phillips, the questioner explained, "makes the point that members of your administration have reached out to prophetic Christians who see the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism as signs of the apocalypse. Do you believe this? And if not, why not?"

Bush's immediate response, as transcribed by CNN, was: "Hmmm." Then he said: "The answer is I haven't really thought of it that way. Here's how I think of it. First, I've heard of that, by the way." The official White House website transcript drops the strategic comma, and so changes the meaning to: "First I've heard of that, by the way."

But it is certainly not the first time Bush has heard of the apocalyptic preoccupation of much of the religious right, having served as evangelical liaison on his father's 1988 presidential campaign. The Rev Jerry Falwell told Newsweek how he brought Tim LaHaye, then an influential rightwing leader, to meet him; LaHaye's Left Behind novels, dramatising the rapture, Armageddon and the second coming, have sold tens of millions.

But it is almost certain that Cleveland was the first time Bush had heard of Phillips's book. He was the visionary strategist for Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign; his 1969 book, The Emerging Republican Majority, spelled out the shift of power from the north-east to the south and south-west, which he was early to call "the sunbelt"; he grasped that southern Democrats would react to the civil-rights revolution by becoming southern Republicans; he also understood the resentments of urban ethnic Catholics towards black people on issues such as crime, school integration and jobs. But he never imagined that evangelical religion would transform the coalition he helped to fashion into something that horrifies him.

In American Theocracy, Phillips describes Bush as the founder of "the first American religious party"; September 11 gave him the pretext for "seizing the fundamentalist moment"; he has manipulated a "critical religious geography" to hype issues such as gay marriage. "New forces were being interwoven. These included the institutional rise of the religious right, the intensifying biblical focus on the Middle East, and the deepening of insistence on church-government collaboration within the GOP electorate." It portended a potential "American Disenlightenment," apparent in Bush's hostility to science.

Even Bush's failures have become pretexts for advancing his transformation of government. Exploiting his own disastrous emergency management after Hurricane Katrina, Bush is funneling funds to churches as though they can compensate for governmental breakdown. Last year David Kuo, the White House deputy director for faith-based initiatives, resigned with a statement that "Republicans were indifferent to the poor".

Within hours of its publication, American Theocracy rocketed to No 1 on Amazon. At US cinemas, V for Vendetta - in which an imaginary Britain, ruled by a totalitarian, faith-based regime that rounds up gays, is a metaphor for Bush's America - is the surprise hit. Bush has succeeded in getting American audiences to cheer for terrorism.

(Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is the author of The Clinton Wars. Email to: sidney_blumenthal@yahoo.com)


2. Time For a Bill of Particulars on Another George
When in the course of human events there's impeachment talk, the style of the Declaration of Independence could set the tone
By Sam Newlund

On July 4, 1776, a rebellious group of colonists adopted America's historic Declaration of Independence, lambasting England's King George III for "a long train of abuses and usurpations." One by one they succinctly listed the offenses, such as:

"He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people." Twenty-six other charges made the list.

That was nearly 230 years ago. Now it's time for a bill of particulars on another George -- President George W. Bush. Items ripe for this list have been rolling out with numbing consistency since he took office just over five years ago. Impeachment is now openly discussed.

Many of Bush's "abuses and usurpations" concern the Iraq war:
• He has used false information that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that threatened a mushroom cloud over this country as a reason for invading Iraq. (The war so far has killed more than 2,300 Americans; estimates of the Iraqi death toll vary wildly -- up to 100,000 or more, including women and children.)

• He has ignored most of our allies (the British are an exception) in starting this war, and turned admiration and friendship for America throughout the world to anger and disrespect.

• He has subverted law and the Constitution, eavesdropping on thousands of Americans in search of Al-Qaida terrorists. Many have been imprisoned without warrants, charges or attorneys and denied the right to challenge their detention in court.

• He has insisted that America does not torture prisoners, but photos taken at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, plus other evidence, have proved otherwise. He has claimed that rules against torture contained in the Geneva Conventions don't apply to many detainees.

• He has had people kidnapped, shackled and flown to dungeons in foreign countries that are known to practice torture, calling this scheme "extraordinary rendition."

• He has tried to subvert a Senate amendment designed to prohibit torture. First he vowed to veto it, then signed it when it was clear a veto would be overridden. But he attached a "signing statement" saying, in effect, that if necessary he would act as he pleased.

• He has sent American troops to war, at least until recently, without adequate body armor and protective shields for their vehicles.

• He has ignored advice from military experts that he sent far fewer troops to Iraq than needed.

• He has failed to plan adequately for managing the country once Saddam was toppled. Nor has he settled on an exit strategy.

Besides Iraq:
• He has pushed a series of tax cuts that give lopsided benefits to the rich, worsen the budget shortfall and shift the burden of deficits to our children and grandchildren. Last week the Senate voted to raise the debt limit to nearly $9 trillion, almost $3 trillion of which has been enacted under Bush.

• He has tried to begin "privatizing" Social Security (Congress has yet to approve) by allowing workers to divert some of their payroll taxes into stocks and bonds. But because current payroll deductions support current recipients, the diversion would create an immediate gap in the Social Security funds that would have to be replaced. Borrowing the replacement dollars would further bloat the national debt.

• He has pandered to the religious right, promoting its views on issues like abortion, contraception, sex education, same-sex marriage and "faith-based initiatives."

• He has severely restricted the use of federal dollars for stem-cell research that could lead to cures for life-threatening diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

• He has fostered an obsession with secrecy, more than any other recent president. He has weakened the Freedom of Information Act, making it harder for private citizens and journalists to learn what their government is doing

• He has expanded the use of "executive privilege" to deny information to Congress, magnified claims of national security as an excuse for secrecy, and generally stonewalled requests for information.

• He has fallen far short of providing timely aid to New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities struggling to overcome the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita six months ago.

• He has abandoned the 1997 Kyoto treaty to reduce global warming by cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, although the United States is the prime source of those gases. Ignoring science, he has claimed global warming is not fully proven.

• He has continued an energy policy relying heavily on oil, mostly from the Middle East. (But Congress has balked at drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.)

These facts point to a backward slide in this country from a free and open society where nobody -- not even the president -- is above the law. Where the well-being of all trumps the wishes of politicians or special interests. Where scientific inquiry is unpolluted by politics or ideology, and public business is done in public. Where nobody worries about intercepted phone calls or stolen e-mail, and wars are fought out of necessity, not out of hubris, nationalism, oil or anything else.

(Sam Newlund is a retired journalist in Minneapolis.)