Shouldn't I know what George Bush does to satisfy his religious obligations? Shouldn't I know what he does for church? I'm a reasonably informed person, yet I have no idea what Bush does for church. I believe that he doesn't go to a regular church, as he supposedly doesn't want to create a ruckus at the church; as that blasted Clinton did every Sunday. But I don't know what he does. Does he have a private church service at the Whitehouse? Is this considered an official function? Am I paying for this? Is this like in the Oval Office, or is there a church in the Whitehouse? And if the Whitehouse did have a regular private church service for a president, and say this church service cost, say, one hundred thousand dollars (not an unreasonable guesstimate, when you include extra security, a fancy pastor, and all the doo-dads), and they had one at least thirty Sundays a year (with the other twenty-two spent in Crawford or some other Whitehouse offshoot); should we really have to pay for this? That's three fucking million dollars a year; as perk for a job that doesn't pay a tenth that much. How the hell does he deserve three million dollars for his damn religious beliefs? He's a president, not fucking God. Hell, I'm not even sure if I'd want to pay three million dollars to hold a church service for God himself; even if he came down here and requested one. Sure, I might pay if it was God, but he better damn well have something in it for me. Money doesn't grow on trees, and there's nothing worse than a stingy god.
But back to the point: I can't really see George having the private service. Because I don't see him wanting to sit still for so long; nor do I believe that he wouldn't have noticed by now that every sermon applied directly to him in a negative way. But I don't know what I can see as happening. Sure, it's quite possible that the New Yorker or some other hard-hitting magazine has recently done a lightweight piece which mentioned how President Bush fulfills his religious obligations. But learning that would require actual research on my behalf; research which could possibly serve to completely undermine this post; and that would kind of suck. So instead, I'll just engage in the time-worn tradition of uninformed speculation and leave it at that.
Because I speculate that Bush doesn't have any kind of church service. I suspect that he doesn't do anything. Hell, I don't even see him as a praying man. Can you? Can you see George W. Bush down on his knees and begging God for help? I can't. Not of his own accord, anyway. Sure, if someone was there with him, maybe he'd go through motions; but I can't see him doing it by choice. Not because I think he doesn't believe in God, as I'm sure he does; but because he's too proud to beg, even to God. He's too proud to be down on his knees praying. He's too proud to act as if he needs the help. Besides, Bush's God has already granted Bush what he needs, and supposedly helps him on an active basis. Bush doesn't need to pray. He's on a mission from God.
And my main point isn't to make fun of Bush or to mock his religion (though that is certainly part of my intent). My point is that I should already know all this by now. Bush has been in the Whitehouse for over five years now, and he was my governor for a few more before that. And yet I don't know what this man does in regards to something which should supposedly be very important to him. It's no secret that religion means a lot to Bush, but I have no idea of what that religion really is, or how he acts upon it. Religion without rituals is little more than philosophy; and we all know that Bush isn't really the philosophical type.
Sure, maybe he wants to keep his religion private. Everything else the Whitehouse does is a secret, so I see no reason why his religion should be any different. But religion doesn't really seem private to him. Because he talks about it. At least some aspects of it. But he doesn't really tell us anything important. It's all just vague feel-good sentiments that you could have stolen off of a Hallmark card. And maybe we need to keep his religion private for National Security reasons. Like maybe if the terrorists figured out who his god is, they might be able to bribe Him with religious conversions. I mean, wouldn't God accept ten thousand Muslim converts in exchange for allowing Bush to lose? Not only are they fresh meat, but Muslims are well-renowned for their religious fanaticism; and if we know anything about God it's that he loooves a loyal believer. Of course, that brings up a separate issue as to whether the Muslims would be willing to give up their religion if it meant they could defeat us. Is it possible? And how come you never see the terrorism experts on CNN talking about this? Is it political-correctness, or are they just not bright enough? And if all the Muslim terrorists became Christian, as a means to defeat us, would that finally shut-up the Coulter dipwads who insist that terrorism is a direct result of the Islamic faith? Or would nothing shut them up? I think we all know the unfortunate answer to that last one.
And finally, what about George W. Bush's version of God? The one that he thinks is helping him? Would you want to meet him? What if it turned out that Bush's God was just one of many; and that he was just as incompetent as Bush? Like the other gods all made fun of him, and he was famous for being just as much a screw-up as George; and that he's the reason why everything's sucking up for us right now? Would you want to be there when Bush found out, and would he be totally pissed-off? What if it turned out that he was your god too, and that he was really pissed at you for not helping out his best believer? Would you happily go to Hell, or would you really want to be in Bush God's heaven, with Bush as the top ex-mortal? Or would Bush God's heaven and hell be the exact same place? And would that be any different than it is for us now?
So many questions, and not a damn answer. Could that be Bush God's motto?
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4 comments:
This is always something that I thought got short shrift considering all the positive conservative press Bush gets about finding God. All I've heard is that he "doesn't attend regular service on Sunday." That on its own strikes me as a little odd -- I've always felt that church is most pleasant and useful as a general gathering in worship...
This is something we could probably resolve with a little "old-fashioned investigative journalism" as Spider Jerusalem would call it. I know that there have been a few features in various magazines on the subject that might glean something interesting. At any rate it's the type of thing that I'd like to circulate into the blogosphere in the hopes that it might get asked to Scott McClellan at some point:
"What does President do for his Sunday worship? What is he doing this Sunday? Could maybe we do it as a publicly broadcast event, just once?"
Sure would give a lot of credence to the Howard Dean "I worship in private" line that was used to tar him as a Northeastern closet agnostic, should that ever come up again.
I've always felt that church is most pleasant and useful as a general gathering in worship...
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one. As a kid, I used to look forward to the part of Mass in which I'd sneak off to the bathroom, lock the bathroom stall, and slide out under the door; thus leaving it locked. I kept that up every Sunday until I finally got busted by the organist while crawling under. A few weeks later, he saw me hanging around the alter after church and came up to me like I was in trouble. But I was there with my dad, who was always heavily involved in the church (and eventually became a Deacon); and the organist asked me if that was my dad, and walked off with nothing to say after I told him that it was. I've always kind of hoped that God would have the same reaction too; and would let me into Heaven as a reward to my dad for all his good service.
As a teen, the only thing I liked about church was looking at the girls dressed-up in their Sunday best. But I'm married now, so there's really no point in going to church at all.
He and Cheney sacrifice goats in the Lincoln bedroom.
We used to skip in high school and go to Sonic or Bennigans.
I've always thought Bush (or whoever does his thinking for him) deliberately leaves this question vague, so that everyone in his base can happily assume the pResident worships exactly as they do.
After all, we are talking about evangelical Protestants. People who fracture over how deep to push them down during baptism, and how long to hold them under. (Love what Kinky Friedman says: No one holds them down long enough.)
There's snake handlers, speakers in tongues, faith healers and those who started a new church across town because somebody picked oak for the new pews and they wanted walnut.
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