The supremely pious, the religiously devout, the theologically assured -- the whole lot scares the bejesus out of me. They have cosmic sponsorship, or so they believe, meaning they comprehend universal Truth and therefore possess universal Answers; meaning, in short, they can do no wrong -- meaning even their most naked buffooneries have celestial sanction.
He of supreme piety is reported to be searching for early hints into the judgment of history on his Earthly reign, and the above -- that of supremely self-confident buffoonery -- will, I believe, be the nut of it.
Volumes upon volumes of the deepest introspection will be scribbled, scores of interviews will be conducted and stacks of official documents will be perused, but it will all come down to this: George W. Bush was, at best, a borderline psychotic, almost altogether out of touch with reality, because he was a True Believer.
How do I know he's searching for hints, looking for answers? Because this morning the Washington Post tells me so, right here: "At the nadir of his presidency, George W. Bush is looking for answers."
Fine time.
But of course Mr. Bush already has the answers, which somewhat complicates an honest search for them. What the Post means to say is that the president is looking for -- Dear Lord, our Father in Heaven, how I detest this word and please forgive me for using it -- validation.
And that is precisely what the Post goes on to demonstrate through a smear of interviews with those who've been subjected to George's searchingly shallow, infinitely at-ease and premeditated mind.
"One at a time or in small groups, he summons leading authors, historians, philosophers and theologians to the White House to join him in the search."
Yet "for all the setbacks, he remains unflinching, rarely expressing doubt in his direction, yet trying to understand how he got off course."
That oxymoronic sentence itself requires its own herd of authors, historians, philosophers and theologians to reconcile, but let us not quibble. We get the gist: George is doing fine, thank you very much, although the benighted multitudes understand him not and know not what he does. And that's frustrating for an agent of God.
This stupendous insularity is reaffirmed in the piece time and again: "Bush does not come across like a man lamenting his plight ... he exhibits an inexorable upbeat energy ... he avoids second-guessing his actions. He still acts as if he were master of the universe."
Said one think-tank scholar interviewed: "You don't get any feeling of somebody crouching down in the bunker. This is either extraordinary self-confidence or [he's] out of touch with reality. I can't tell you which."
But there is no either/or. He's both. And the only thing that makes it so spooky, of course, is that only his lucky-sperm-club birth skyrocketed him to the zenith of power; otherwise he'd be distributing "End of Times" pamphlets in Lafayette Park.
Said a House Republican: "It's like he's oblivious." Yeah, it's sorta like that, isn't it?
And said a theologian who's been included in these head-patting revivals: "His faith is very strong. He seeks guidance, like every other president does, in prayer. And that means trying to be sure he's doing the right thing. And if you've got that set, all the criticism, it doesn't faze you very much. You're answering to God."
Those last four little words -- words that incontrovertibly apply to Mr. Bush -- say it all. When one answers only to God's frequently garbled communications, of what temporal value is the U.S. Constitution, the Republic's traditions, the will of the people, the world's approbation? In merely one little word: Squat.
The Founding Fathers, perhaps, dropped the ball a bit when it came to excluding any religious test for the presidency. A trifle weekend Episcopalianism could be permitted, or even a liberal dose of Unitarianism, but otherwise, maybe piety of Mr. Bush's ilk should have been banned from the presidency as an intolerable threat to the earnestly befuddled and their only known instrument of sound judgment -- the Rule of Reason.
