Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
May 17, 2009
Bush The Religious Nut

How much of an evangelical nut was George W. Bush?

Rumsfeld obviously thought it was Bush's weak point and that he could use it to get from Bush whatever he wanted. That at least is my conclusion from Rumsfeld's headlining of intelligence briefings for Bush with bible quotes:

The briefing’s cover sheet generally featured triumphant, color images from the previous days’ war efforts: On this particular morning, it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline secretary of defense, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.”

You can see some of the 'top secret' briefing cover sheets here. Other examples:

On March 31, a U.S. tank roared through the desert beneath a quote from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” On April 7, Saddam Hussein struck a dictatorial pose, under this passage from the First Epistle of Peter: “It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.”

One wonders how the reports of 'intelligence' from torture interrogations were headlined. My guess is that quotes from the ten commandment or the sermon on the mount were not used for those.

Comments

how fark have been the times we have passed through & into what dark times are we heading
these communications between rumsfiel & bush are nothing short of demonic

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 17 2009 15:24 utc | 1

i was just coming to post the GQ link. christianfreakzoids.

Posted by: annie | May 17 2009 15:32 utc | 2

See, Obama’s supposedly a constitutional lawyer. and this shit is so far off the wall that it makes anyone, lawyer or not, but especially one with a respect for the Constitution, livid. Importantly, it’s a clear sympotom of the underlying unconstitutionality of the whole enterprise. And the need to turn the accountability spigot on. Perhaps even Ms. Pelosi sees that now, and the dogs she chose to lay/lie with.

Posted by: DonS | May 17 2009 15:49 utc | 3

Pelosi didn’t choose Hoyer and company; she wanted old-school dems like Murtha to have the last say.
She’s been politicking for a long time, now, behind the scenes — this latest broadside against her should be proof enough that the boys and girls of the Hallowed Hallways have been whispering behind her back for quite a while.
I’m just sayin’. It’s not an excuse; but the point deserves to be made.
Obama is a rookie, and he’s getting overwhelmed by the bureaucracy of it all — that, and apparently he’s listening to the wrong damn people about the wrong damn things. But maybe he’s just worried about getting Kennedied, too. It’s not as if Blackwater ever went away.
Again — it’s no excuse. But understandable, given the circumstances. The U.S. is in a bad way, and there are an awful lot of white folks out there who think they should enjoy perpetually undefined privileges vis a vis the police, the law, and the economy. The Bush junta was nothing more than a neatly exposed cross-section of those sorts; they haven’t gone away, they won’t give up without a fight, they have a lot of guns, and a lot of them are in the military, the police, the FBI, and — of course — Blackwater.
Though a lot of the time i think Dave Neiwert is a petulant whiner prone to exaggerated fits of self-righteousness, i give him credit for keeping a close eye on a malignant tumor that more people should worry over.

Posted by: china_hand2 | May 17 2009 17:22 utc | 4

Today the Cheney Regime was in full spin, confabulating his Constitutional right of free speech with his call for an end to war crimes disclosures and a commitment from Obama not to indict the Cheney team for any of their gross malfeasance, nay, traitorous and war criminal actions. Part of that “free speech” was a chorus of cackling AIPAC-Defense pundits screaming we cannot show the evidence of that malfeasance because it ‘aids the enemy’, and that we need to continue with secret military tribunals of ‘terrorists’ as non-humans, need to continue torture labeled as ‘COIN information gathering’, need secret renditions to contractor foreign torture cells, need more than $20,000M devoted to black ops ‘other undisclosed national security purposes’ like illegal wiretaps of American citizens and monitoring of all US phone and e-mail traffic by Israeli contractors, and
mostly need to ‘move forward and not waste time looking backward’ in our Global War of Terror. You can almost see Adolf Hitler dancing his little jig at Bertchesgaden. Meanwhile on the Home Front, business leaders are gyning up a national campaign to “Happy Happy, Num Num” Americans that “We’re In the Money” and it’s a national priority to stifle bad economic news and better start cheerleading spending again.

Posted by: Monte Sinclair | May 17 2009 17:40 utc | 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58SwUJ4Ev5U&feature=related
America’s ‘happy happy, num num for Jebeezus,’ while the real world moves on.

Posted by: Scion Nara | May 17 2009 17:48 utc | 6

A good article but it was written by a Bush insider. It seems that the strategy for redeeming Bush’s disastrous presidency will be to blame everything on Rumsfeld. Those cover pictures are amazing. Only sick minds would feel the need to preface secret briefings with cornball patriotic religous propaganda.

Posted by: Sgt Dan | May 17 2009 18:10 utc | 7

Giving credence to China_hand2 above, wherein the pols are out to get Pelosi, after the whispering campaign, Boehner raises the stakes:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/17/pelosi.torture/index.html
I agree that this in no way is an excuse for Pelosi, or any of the other pols who have dissembled, been complicit, etc., on both sides of the aisle. But with the level of stench getting out of control — and with the shifting political alliances and cabals seeking to blame and CYA — what it does say is 1) there must be a process of accountability and 2) the process needs to be removed as far as possible from the politics. This begins to look increasingly like an independent prosecutor, or a special commission with subpoena powers, since too many of the principals are now clearly tainted.
And I agree Obama has the marks of a rookie whose default position in “national security” matters seems to be the “safe”, conservative option, upon which specious logic he has sought to stifle calls for accountability, at least as may involve his personal action. Still, sooner or later it seems he will not be able to avoid putting his thumb down somewhere, due to the stench and inherent conflicts of interest mentioned, which are only likely to get worse now that the finger pointing and name calling have begun in earnest.
For better or worse, Obama is the only one who can instigate a process potentially above politics.

Posted by: DonS | May 17 2009 18:15 utc | 8

It’s not funnycuz it’s true.

Posted by: …—… | May 17 2009 18:46 utc | 9

A common problem with so many believers is that, not only are they content with believing themselves just instruments of “divine will,” as such, but think of themselves as, in effect, God. The former is troublesome itself. The latter is disgusting both form irreligious and religious perspective.

Posted by: kao_hsien_chih | May 18 2009 2:09 utc | 10

I know it’s kinda off subject but if you jump ahead to minute 4:20 (Ironic?) you can get the gist of what …—… was getting at… just remember to jump ahead, the meat of the moment is between 4:20 and 6:00…
God talks

Posted by: DavidS | May 18 2009 2:43 utc | 11

Damn typepad… take two
God talks

Posted by: DavidS | May 18 2009 2:43 utc | 12