Friday, October 15, 2004
frontline: the choice 2004 - explore this link
frontline: the choice 2004: interviews: david frum | PBS:
"How evident was the religious current in the White House? You recall, I think, the first words you heard.
Yes. The first words -- obviously it's sort of funny -- but just by coincidence the first words I heard as I stepped over the threshold for the first time, on my way to the breakfast where they make the decision whether to hire me or not, were 'Missed you at Bible study.' Not directed to me, but to the man I was with, who had supposed to be at it.
The religious influence was strongest in sort of the mid-level of the staff. You had a lot of very idealist young people and not-so-young people who came from religious backgrounds, for whom evangelical Christianity was the natural idiom of their lives. Maybe other White Houses had been full of economists, and this one was full of people for whom faith was the way they understood the world.
But you can get the wrong idea from that, because evangelical America is a pretty diverse place, too. There are a lot of different political strains. Evangelical religion can point you to a lot of very different kinds of political answers."
And also, The Jesus Factor This transcript is drawn from two interviews conducted on Oct. 30, 2003 and Jan. 8, 2004
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2 comments:
Bush is a religious cipher: he is simply too primitive to do religion any justice. He's more dog like, but that says the wrong thing about a dog.
Certainty is anathema to spiritualism: there is mystery, or there is nothing.
Bush talks of tough decisions, but he have never made a tough decision: he asked God, God told him, and Jesus will have to take the rap. Bush just did what god told him to do: how the hell can that be hard?
Nah: Bush is the low point in the modern American presidency. And that's on an absolute scale, no inflation factor, nothing with higher expectations in a more democratic nation, more modern: Bush is a total looser.
The biggest risk is that he somehow dies: then his words are separated from the living breathing asshole he is, and then we've got even more trouble.
Tivo'd the show and watched it:
1) Kerry is shown to be a truly outstanding man. And his bravery in combat far exceeds what we have been told. His focus and desire to serve emerges very early in life and never wavers. He loves public service. He has made mistakes, and he has grown from them.
2) Bush is a very very popular guy, president of his Yale frat, and he actually made it though Harvard Business School. He is also a fighter pilot, which takes no little skill. But he is in no way presidential: he was selected by handlers as someone they could win with. Good looking, very friendly, and very very religious/born again. It worked. It's still working despite his almost complete failure in everything! Bush has failed and learned nothing.
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