I discovered today that George W. Bush is a better leader or a better Christian than I knew.
Here he is facing a barrage of Katrina criticism, some of it almost surely coming from the people who helped create the Katrina crisis, and what does he do?
He reaches out and thanks these people for their criticism. After his meeting with Bush, the mayor of New Orleans, Mr. C. Ray Nagin, said, "If anything, he told me he kind of appreciated my frankness and my bluntness."
This might be the triumph of a Christian generosity, a turning of the cheek. It’s hard not to notice that no one takes Bush’s Christianity seriously, unless, in my opinion, they take it too seriously. No one seems ever to read Bush’s behavior as if he were being animated by Christian beliefs or practices. Instead, people treat his Christianity as if it were somehow "part of the act," an opportunistic play for sun belt, heart land, anti-coastal voters. No one seems to believe that George W. Bush is ever actually listening when in church. He’s there as part of the theatre of his presidency, to show that he stands with certain conservative verities and against the godless Dems.
I, for one, can’t believe how sloppy, self serving and just plain reckless this is as a piece of analysis. Hey, it might be right…but I don’t believe I have heard anyone make the argument, let alone demonstrate the case. It’s as if people want this to be true so badly they mean to repeat it until alternative ideas are rendered unthinkable. (This is one way of making sure the "truth will out," by killing, that is to say, all competitors. Call this the Tudor model of the social construction of reality.*)
The key strategic question: what if you are wrong? You have given up one of the great opportunities for decoding the present presidency. (Do we know the substance of the sermons Bush hears each week? And, if we don’t, isn’t it vertiginously strange that we don’t? What, we don’t think this makes a difference? Are you kidding me?)
Or Bush’s response to the mayor of New Orleans might be a triumph of a leader’s pragmatism. It says, effectively, “your criticism helped me see the work we had to do. Thanks.” This is the selflessness of leadership. The leader accepts that people will behave badly. He/she accepts that people will behave badly at his/her expense and the expense of his/her presidency. The leader might engage in a blame game, but, really, what would that accomplish? A leader "takes the hit" and moves on to solve the problem.
Here too there is something sensationally transgressive about using the name “George W. Bush” and the word "selfless" in the same sentence. We just don’t think this way. We "know" that George Bush is a man of small motives, a man incapable of personal sacrifice, a man who seeks and uses his office to augment, never to diminish, himself. Again, how do we "know" this? Are we sure?
I know it’s not fashionable to talk this way about George W. Bush, but that should give us pause. Actually, the problem goes deeper than that. It is indeed barely intelligible to talk about George Bush this way. To refer to the kind or effect of his religious feeling, do we ever do this? To refer to the selflessness of his presidency, this too trembles on the verge of incoherence. In sum, we have read certain interpretive possibilities out of analysis before analysis has begun. And we all did it. Intellectuals all did it. Intellectuals all did it. (It always astonishes me to see that the intellectual is first and foremost a pack animal.)
George W. Bush, maybe for all of his take-charge, Texan, just-folk transparency, there are complexities we have not discovered. Discovering complexities, I thought this was what the chattering classes were for.
References
Johnson, Kirk. 2005. 45 Bodies Are Found in a New Orleans Hospital. New York Times. September 13, 2005. here.
(* Henry VII is said to have secured the Tudor claim to the throne as much negatively as positively. He eliminated almost everyone with a competing claim.)
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I was also suprised to hear him take the blame for the failings of the Federal government in response to Katrina.
I make no argument that Bush is a orthodox (of today’s times) christian. However, to what degree does he weild it as Constantine did? That is a much larger question. Nothing, especially in these times, prevents someone from holding christianity to be true, and yet weild it for his perception of the greater good. Think of the persecution by the Catholic church during the Inquisition.
As a much more fundamentalist (meaning anabaptist, the reformers never went far enough) Christian, I take serious argument (as I’ve said before) with orthodoxy and it’s ethics, beliefs, and practices
For me, it’s Bush’s pervasive superficiality that makes claims of religious depth difficult to fathom. The man I see smirking and posturing, foolishly gesticulating and mugging on a daily basis, does not seem a likely candidate for intense religious experience.
Overall, he just looks too adolescent to take these claims seriously.
I could, of course, be wrong. I just don’t see much evidence to the contrary.
“I just don’t see much evidence to the contrary.”
Tom – it’s possible that the propaganda (from left and right) has blinded you to seeing the facts in an objective manner.. I refer to your text as evidence that you’ve stopped looking for the objective truth and see .. what you wish to see. I might be wrong.
I myself am not Christian – strike that, I am but I am no longer churched. I’m no fan, yet I voted for him, twice. Why?
Bush has _always_ reminded me, even when he was my governer, of those flawed, well meaning, intelligent, and genuine Christian gentlemen I knew. Hokey? Oh-my-dear-lord spare from another pancake and prayer breakfast.
But they mean what they say. They tithe and they give and when they say ‘community’ they mean it. Old time Texians believed if they were good and had Faith the Lord would provide .. and He does, more often than not.
If I am objective I must conclude they are on to something.
Grant wrote:
(Do we know the substance of the sermons Bush hears each week? And, if we don’t, isn’t it vertiginously strange that we don’t? What, we don’t think this makes a difference? Are you kidding me?)
Bush doesn’t hear a sermon each week. In fact, he goes to church extremely infrequently. This was raised in lead up to the 2004 election. A number of bloggers in Left Blogostan were pushing for someone to ask “Mr. President, why don’t you go to church more often?” in one of the debates.
Also see the article on this question by Amy Sullivan in the New Republic from just before the election: http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041011&s=sullivan101104 (free registration required)
An excerpt:
What most–including many of the president’s fiercest supporters–don’t know, however, is that Bush doesn’t go to church. Sure, when he weekends at Camp David, Bush spends Sunday morning with the compound’s chaplain. And, every so often, he drops in on the little Episcopal church across Lafayette Park from the White House. But the president who has staked much of his domestic agenda on the argument that religious communities hold the key to solving social problems doesn’t belong to a congregation.
I submit this not to invalidate your larger point–which I take is to ask, why not consider that Bush’s faith may be sincere?–but to add a data point to the consideration of the question, “What kind of Christian is George W. Bush? A partial answer: one of the kinds that doesn’t necessarily find it important to be regularly involved in a church community.
And also to answer why it might be that we don’t know what sermon he hears every Sunday 😉
I didn’t hear that at all in his statement today – as a matter of fact, it was positively Clintonesque. He didn’t say, things were wrong, and he took full responsibility. Instead, he said:
“To the extent the federal government didn’t fully do its job right , I take responsibility,”
To me, that’s a waffle. A true leader would unconditionally take responsibility. Instead he’s saying:
*If* the federal government didn’t do *it’s job* (meaning anything that can’t be blamed on state and local governments) then, maybe, he’ll take responsibility.
For that matter, I have never heard him either unconditionally admit he was wrong or unconditionally offer to take responsibility for something.
Remember his reaction to Katrina earlier? He would find out what went wrong. Not take responsibility, but investigate, like OJ looking for his wife’s killer.
To this day, he still hasn’t given a straight-shooting statement of responsiblity about Iraq, even though pretty much everything that the administration originally said has had to be revised in light of the facts.
I want me a straight shooter, not a legalistic waffler wearing a John Wayne mask.
— E
Sorry, a buddy of mine just told me that his ex-wife’s sister still hasn’t been found. She lived in New Orleans, and nobody knows if she’s alive or dead. She was black and presumably not wealthy; the kind of people who were not evacuated and barred from leaving on foot. When I saw Bush splitting hairs at this late stage of the game, I got annoyed.
I really struggle with all of these questions, too. I regularly find myself writing about our current president with certain assumptions about his internal motivations. That is risky business for me because I cannot know those assumptions with absolute certainty. I also impose my own biases in making these judgments. What I CAN do is comment on his behaviors. Those are concrete and observable, very worthy of my comments.
Years ago, I was a religion major in college before switching over to philosophy. I remain highly religious. Based on my experiences, I think you are on to something very important. I do believe that President Bush has strong religious feelings, or at least I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure that Pat Robertson has strong religious feelings as well, even when he is suggesting it is okay to assassinate political leaders that he disagrees with.
However, I don’t believe those religious feelings are necessarily inline with the teachings of Christ. Also, I believe that President Bush’s excessive use of the photo-op, such as the plastic turkey he gave to troops in Iraq, or the ‘Mission Accomplished’ photo-op on the aircraft carrier, makes all of his photo-ops as well as any press statements about being religious seems suspect. It is like the story of the boy who cried wolf.
You will recall in the story, that a real wolf did come, and no one believed the boy. Perhaps President Bush is truly religious, but few believe him.
That said, I have to agree with what others have said about Bush ‘taking responsibility’ for the failures of the Federal Government in relief efforts. It was a waffle and what does that ‘taking responsibility’ really amount to, other than yet another photo-op?
With responsibility comes action. The people of Connecticut made great efforts to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. As BlogMaster for John DeStefano’s Gubernatorial campaign, we have worked hard to get citizens, as well as different levels of the government to work together in relief efforts. (See this blog entry, http://www.destefanoforct.com/node/516 for more details).
I would like to see President Bush take some real concrete action. If I am going to be charitable to President Bush, I would quote James 2:17 to him, ” Faith without works is dead”.
Kudos for having us question our assumptions Grant. Nothing is more important in today’s chaotic world. But I can’t lean your way on this one. If it had been an immediate response by G.W., then perhaps. But the delay smells of more Carl Rove political posturing to me. Sorry. I truly want to believe.
Over time, I have come to believe that Bush is a sincere Christian. But, I believe that he, like the vast majority of sincere Christians, does not believe in turning the other cheek, etc.
I heard an interesting comment the other night that struck me as germane. Someone said that many of today’s most overtly Christian leaders seem to embrace Old Testament more strongly than New Testament sentiments, particularly, the Beatitudes:
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall posses the land.
Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Powerful sentiments, regardless of one’s religious beliefs.
In my earlier comments I didn’t mean to question the sincerity of the president’s religious faith, only his depth. In that regard, I continue to question the depth of his thinking in general.
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First of all, I very much enjoyed reading the last comment by Tom Guarriello: it’s great to see how regardless your beliefs such ancient and yet simple words can still ring so true.
I’d just wish more people would realise that and quit their language of antagonism and fear…
More to the point: when I saw this post pop up in my Bloglines account, and had read it a few times, in order to let it sink in, I had 2 ‘instant’ reactions:
1) Grant will get a loooot of comments on this one, and:
2) Very interesting attempt to try and flip the coin for once, as yes, we are, as Brian puts it, ‘blinded’ by ‘propaganda’ (whatever the political colour)).
On the other hand, what else (more precisely, what better?) can we base our opinion on than our own observations? (as much as that observation can be fooled: i.e. PR/Marketing/spin doctors etc etc, but I don’t want to start splitting hairs)
As one commenter puts it ‘I don’t see any evidence to the contrary’, which in my opinion can be used for either ‘side’ of the discussion, as noble as Grants’ attempt is to try and cut through the coloured info we are getting.
I’ll be frank, I think Dubbya and his office are a bunch of fear- and warmongering bunch of idiots with no idea of the complexity of their own society, thus totally incapable of understanding any other way of thinking then their own (which incidentally many/most/all people do, in order to keep their perceived and constructed social reality intact, but that is (perhaps) another story again, or maybe actually underlining the point of todays post).
For that reason I was struck by one paragraph in Grant’s post in particular:
“He/she accepts that people will behave badly at his/her expense and the expense of his/her presidency. The leader might engage in a blame game, but, really, what would that accomplish? A leader “takes the hit” and moves on to solve the problem.”
Yes, in itself a just observation, for any good and proper leader, whatever his/her background and job, but I can hardly imagine such enlightened pragamatism here, underlining what Tom said: “I continue to question the depth of his thinking in general”
How else could he react anyway, in an internal affair, where (unfortunately) many of those that got hit never had the feeling they were within his attention span, and thus were lead to believe that the failures to lead were intentional?
Bomb it? That would preposterous. In an internal affair like this he and his office could never permit themselves reacting like they have done in any external affair over the last 5 years…
On the other hand, to avoid burning the guy completely to the ground and comfirm my ‘blindness’: I can imagine his reaction to the mayor’s outburst being honest and real.
He got it straight, and perhaps he enjoyed finally hearing somebody giving it straight, instead of wrapped up in politicians’ babble? Perhaps he’d like more people like that, considering his carefully built up image of his “take charge, Texan” ways.
Perhaps it was some sort of eyeopener?
Sorry for my rambling, I realise that perhaps I have underlined Grants’ point of interpretative analysis before actual factual analysis. It’s a complex issue, with many thoughts and webs of association competing for attention.
Just one last thing: if the man is truly a ‘proper Christian’ with regular church going and listening to sermons and all that, wouldn’t we have seen it live on Fox by now? (and reading thorugh the comments, I see the answer already!)
(Or, to twist in another way again, isn’t it possible to be up close and personal with such a man of power? Not that it is completely comparable, but I can walk up to the crown prince here in Denmark in a night club, without getting beaten up by some goons and I can be on my bike next to the Minister of Finance on his bike, both waiting for the light to turn green. Just curious!)
Just one last thing: if the man is truly a ‘proper Christian’ with regular church going and listening to sermons and all that, wouldn’t we have seen it live on Fox by now?
My own observation is that Fox News is not as jingoistic as it’s detractors make out, and that they cover important news that others (in the US) do not.
Again, my own observation, and I am not an avid consumer of television news. Note I am not talking about the ‘talking head’ shows but the actual news – something I think gets confused in the public mind.
I was very confused by Grant’s piece. It really didn’t add up at all. All these meandering meditations about the christian faith of a man based on some random photo op quote? The selfless President? You mean the one who takes all the vacations? The one who bombs innocent people in Iraq? The one who, amid record deficits, is working to repeal the estate tax for the rich? Wha? Huh? Um…Wha? Then I read a post from earlier in the week, (“Who owns the future of marketing”) and I learned that Grant has recently undergone surgery and is currently on drugs. Oh. Okay.
I was very confused by Grant’s piece. It really didn’t add up at all. All these meandering meditations about the christian faith of a man based on some random photo op quote? The selfless President? You mean the one who takes all the vacations? The one who bombs innocent people in Iraq? The one who, amid record deficits, is working to repeal the estate tax for the rich? Wha? Huh? Um…Wha? Then I read a post from earlier in the week, (“Who owns the future of marketing”) and I learned that Grant has recently undergone surgery and is currently on drugs. Oh. Okay.
I cannot imagine a better illustration of Grant’s thesis than this comments thread.
“Sorry, a buddy of mine just told me that his ex-wife’s sister still hasn’t been found. She lived in New Orleans, and nobody knows if she’s alive or dead.”
Your buddy’s ex-wife’s sister!? Man, that’s got to be a record for “smallest corner on a tragedy ever occupied in an effort to establish one’s deep feeling, personal involvement, and superior perspective.” I would have been more impressed if you’d worked your cleaning lady or your second cousin into the chain somehow, but my hat’s still off.
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