Bush God and War:
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l_nUibzvAI ](1:57)
Praise Bush[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxdt_f0hwUg ](1:32)
Palin FAILS[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZvJ29P2N7U ](2:44)

A steady stream of newspaper stories also described Bush's religiosity. The commingling of religion and politics under Bush was noteworthy especially for his predilection for portraying (and indeed, seeing) himself in a messianic light. Former Bush speech writer David Frum, in his behind-the-scenes book about the early years of the Bush administration, described how fellow Bush staffer Michael Gerson told Bush after his September 20, 2001, televised speech to a traumatized nation. "Mr. President, when I saw you on television, I thought—God wanted you there." According to Frum, Bush replied, He wants us all here, Gerson." Not only did Bush see himself as a man on a divine mission but he actively cultivated this view of his importance among his staff and throughout his administration. Moreover, the White House similarly promoted this image to the public, particularly among conservative Christians.

By turning the White House into an organ of the religious Right, Bush signaled that he was a full participant in what was rapidly becoming the most important meeting ground for a broad range of right-wing beliefs: evangelical Christianity. Bush's overt political appeals to the fundamentalist views of his audiences—particularly in portraying himself as receiving divine guidance—gave himself immunity from fault and his every step the Lord's imprimatur. He thereby also placed himself in the charismatic position of combined political and religious leadership. The effect was to lead individual followers to identify their religious beliefs with Bush's political agenda and to draw nearly the entire evangelical bloc behind him politically.

Fundamentalist Christianity is among the most clear-cut expressions of a Manichean dualism in American society. Its world is divided into good and evil, black and white. In turn, this kind of dualism signals a propensity toward authoritarianism, or what Erik Erikson called totalism: the eager embrace of a totalitarian society.

Religiosity has been almost universally recognized as an important element of any manifestation of fascism in the United States. As early as 1935, Sinclair Lewis observed: “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." More recently, scholar Robert 0. Paxton remarked that "religion... would certainly play a much larger role in an authentic fascism in the United States than in the first European fascisms:"

A brief look at our history seems to substantiate these predictions. Earlier forms of fascism in America were explicitly “Christian” in nature. This is particularly true of the extremists who formed small but widespread societies around neo-Nazi philosophies and admiration for Hitler, most notably those led by the crypto-fascist mystical “philosopher” William Dudley Pelley in the 1930s.
--David Neiwert (chap. 4 p. 87-88)

The Eliminationists(Recreated using PaperPort version 11.1 (11.1.0.300)