The Madness Of King George
By Harley Sorensen
San Francisco Chronicle
Monday 7 July 2003
Folks, our God-fearing president, George W. Bush, who claims to startevery morning on his knees praying, now says that he gets his orders fromGod Himself.
I kid you not.
I refer you to June 24 article by Arnon Regular in Ha'aretz, an Israelinewspaper. In the last paragraph of that article there's a Bush quote asrelated by Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. Here, according toAbbas and Ha'aretz, is what Bush said:
God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then heinstructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined tosolve the problem in the Middle East. If you can help me I will act, andif not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.
That quote doesn't make clear whether God issues direct orders to Bush, orwhether they discuss things first. but I'd guess discussions. It's hard toimagine God deciding anything of importance without without first gettinginput from Bush.
Over the years I've met a handful of people who regularly talk with God,but they usually do so only when they're off their medications.
Those who get instructions directly from the Almighty are twice blessed:They get their orders from the Highest Authority, and the orders arealways to do what they would have done anyway.
Getting direct orders from God makes a president's life simpler. If Godhas spoken, the president doesn't have to observe the niceties with whichpresidents usually contend, things like getting congressional approval orUnited Nations agreement.
Bush's very own personal God connection explains a lot of things. LikeBush's disinterest in global warming.
Why should our duly elected president concern himself with global warmingwhen God Himself has said, "Don't worry, be happy"?
Do you see how it works? With God in your corner, it matters not what youdo, because God will protect you.
OK, I've been shilly-shallying around here, hesitant to come right out andsay what I think, but I'm becoming convinced that our president, the manwith his finger on the nuclear trigger, is a bona fide nutcase.
I really do. For him to say God told him to strike al-Qaida is just nutso.For him to say God told him to strike at Saddam, ditto. This guy is notdealing with a full deck.
To me, Bush's sanity has been suspect for a long time. He does so manythings that defy logic, like his infamous tax cuts, approved by athoroughly cowed Congress.
It doesn't make sense to reduce your income while increasing your spendingand plunging into massive debt.
His blithe attitude toward the public debt he is creating indicates afailure to grasp reality.
His cavalier entry into two wars within two years, in total disregard ofworld opinion on the second one, indicates a man who just doesn't carewhat anyone thinks. Now that his ill-planned schemes in Afghanistan andIraq are coming apart, I sense a bit of panic in the man.
Bush knew what everyone knew, that our armies could conquer. But he had noidea whether they, or anyone, could maintain a peace in nations assplintered as Afghanistan and Iraq. They can't. They're not trained forthat. That's not their mission.
Bush is a good salesman, which is almost certainly why his father'sfriends chose him to be the front man for the Republican Party. He's acharmer, no doubt of that. Because of his sales ability, he was able toconvince most Americans that war with Iraq was a necessity.
But America needs more than a slick salesman to lead the world. We need,at the very least, a man with mental stability. We don't have that withBush. His rapid rise to power, without truly earning it as most presidentsbefore him have done, has gone to his head.
So what we have in the White House today is a megalomaniac with amessianic complex, a man who believes that he and he alone can resolve theworld's problems.
"I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East," he said. I, I,I, I, I! With Bush it's always "I." In a job that requires great humility,we have an egomaniac.
I don't expect many people to agree with my armchair psychoanalysis of aman I've never met. We don't like to admit that important people arecrazy, or even that our relatives are crazy. Typically, we overlook theirbizarre behavior until it gets so bizarre we can't ignore it anymore.
So, all I ask is that you pay attention. A man who claims to get ordersfrom God, and who creates world-shaking events on the basis of those"orders," needs watching.
Harley Sorensen is a longtime journalist and liberal iconoclast. Hiscolumn appears Mondays. E-mail him at harleysorensen@yahoo.com.
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