NPR’s Morning Edition had a telling clip of Bush answering questions at the City Club of Cleveland yesterday. An audience member asked the President if, as charged by Kevin Phillips in his book “American Theocracy,” he invaded Iraq to please “prophetic Christians” who hope that the Iraq war will bring about the Apocalypse. Bush paused, laughed in his nervous/aw shucks way, and said to his laughing audience that he hadn’t thought of his invasion that way.
Whether prophetic Christians would appreciate having their theology provoke so much laughter is anyone’s guess. That they support the President at least in part for this reason is undeniable. I suspect that part of the President’s hemming and hawing was a stalling tactic while he caluclated whether it was politically safe to speak dismissively of his “born again” constituency’s theology. In the end he decided it was more important to win over the larger majority of non apocalyptic Americans whose support for Iraq has been eroding. As he told his questioner, he thought of himself as a “practical fella.”
Yes indeed, President Bush has been so practical that he never challenged the born again’s theology because currying their favor guaranteed their votes. Until, that is, the war in Iraq started going sour.
