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.![](../../std/dings/quoteend.gif)
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by this website] San
Francisco Chronicle Monday, July 7 2003 The
Madness Of King George By Harley
Sorensen FOLKS,
our God-fearing president, George W.
Bush, who claims to start every
morning on his knees praying, now says
that he gets his orders from God
Himself.
I kid you not. I refer you to June 24 article by
Arnon Regular in Ha'aretz,
an Israeli newspaper. In the last
paragraph of that article there's a Bush
quote as related by Palestinian Prime
Minister Mahmoud Abbas. Here,
according to Abbas and Ha'aretz, is
what Bush said: "God told me to strike at al
Qaida and I struck them, and then he
instructed me to strike at
Saddam, which I did, and now I
am determined to solve the problem in
the Middle East. If you can help me I
will act, and if 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, or
whether they discuss things first. but I'd
guess discussions. It's hard to imagine
God deciding anything of importance
without first getting input 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 are always to do what they
would have done anyway.
Getting direct orders from God makes a
president's life simpler. If God has
spoken, the president doesn't have to
observe the niceties with which presidents
usually contend, things like getting
congressional approval or United Nations
agreement. Bush's very own personal God connection
explains a lot of things. Like Bush's
disinterest in global warming. Why should our duly elected president
concern himself with global warming when
God Himself has said, "Don't worry, be
happy"? Do you see how it works? With God in
your corner, it matters not what you do,
because God will protect you.
OK, I've been shilly-shallying around
here, hesitant to come right out and say
what I think, but I'm becoming convinced
that our president, the man with 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 not dealing
with a full deck. To me, Bush's sanity has been suspect
for a long time. He does so many things
that defy logic, like his infamous tax
cuts, approved by a thoroughly cowed
Congress. It doesn't make sense to reduce your
income while increasing your spending and
plunging into massive debt. His blithe attitude toward the public
debt he is creating indicates a failure to
grasp reality. His cavalier entry into two wars within
two years, in total disregard of world
opinion on the second one, indicates a man
who just doesn't care what anyone thinks.
Now that his ill-planned schemes in
Afghanistan and Iraq 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 no idea
whether they, or anyone, could maintain a
peace in nations as splintered as
Afghanistan and Iraq. They can't. They're
not trained for that. That's not their
mission. Bush is a good salesman, which is
almost certainly why his father's friends
chose him to be the front man for the
Republican Party. He's a charmer, no doubt
of that. Because of his sales ability, he
was able to convince 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 with Bush.
His rapid rise to power, without truly
earning it as most presidents before him
have done, has gone to his head. So what we have in the White House
today is a megalomaniac with a messianic
complex, a man who believes that he and he
alone can resolve the world'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 a man I've
never met. We don't like to admit that
important people are crazy, or even that
our relatives are crazy. Typically, we
overlook their bizarre 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 orders
from God, and who creates world-shaking
events on the basis of those "orders,"
needs watching.![](../../std/dings/square.gif) Harley
Sorensen is a longtime
journalist and liberal iconoclast. His
column appears Mondays. ![Related file:](../../std/dings/related.gif)
Patrick
J. Buchanan: Naked Forgery
Arab
sources tie US General Jay Garner,
candidate for Governor of Iraq, to
ruling Likud party in Israel
Patrick
Buchanan: Whose War?, in The American
Conservative. March 24, 2003
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