by Trapper John
Wed Oct 20th, 2004 at 16:09:28 GMT
CNN has an anecdote that pretty much sums up the faith-based presidency of George W. Bush. Fittingly, it's told by Pat Robertson:
Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He described Bush in the meeting as "the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life."
"You remember Mark Twain said, 'He looks like a contented Christian with four aces.' I mean he was just sitting there like, 'I'm on top of the world,' " Robertson said on the CNN show, "Paula Zahn Now."
"And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.' "
Robertson said the president then told him, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."
Robertson goes on to talk about how the Lord told him that the war would be a disaster, and how Bush has received "the blessing of heaven," but that's not the point.
Robertson's story is just another example of how completely out of touch Bush is with reality, a point made eloquently today by the always-excellent Harold Meyerson. Bush is, as as he himself admitted, "one guy in a bubble." He doesn't read the papers, doesn't read news on the internets, and believes he has some sort of divine mandate. Bush is, simply put, not a member of the reality-based community -- he's a latter-day Howard Hughes with a messiah complex. And that makes him almost singularly unqualified to lead the most powerful nation on Earth, as his Iraq disaster has proved all too well.
