Abracadabrah

I create as I speak

UPDATED: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

And speaking of God, or that is to say, God speaking to us, apparently President Bush confessed to Nabil Shaath, the Foreign Minister of our friend Abbas over in Gaza, that God speaks to him:

Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …" And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it.'"

Abu Mazen was at the same meeting and recounts how President Bush told him: "I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state."

So let's see. Here we have the Palestinian Prime Minister and his foreign minister, leaders of rectitude to a man, recounting this conversation to a representative of the BBC, widely praised for its fair and balanced coverage of the Bush Administration.

Naturally the Palestinian Ministers would be the first people, outside of his private circle, to whom Bush would feel comfortable confessing this.

Yes, fools! Proof at last. The Iraq war was a Christian jihad, spearheaded by God's latest false prophet. No wonder, it's turned into such a quagmire. But at least it's not yet like Vietnam.

An interesting point, to my mind, is the difference in language between Nabil Shaath's comments and Abu Mazen's. Abu Mazen's comments are to my mind completely unobjectionable. Since Bush is a religious man, his moral obligations would obviously be formed out of his religious core.

Seems to me, from this summary, that Shaath's comments are a reference to the same conversation that Abu Mazen mentions but translated through some unique and highly excitable filter of his own. Arabic poetic license, as it were. Not for naught the floweriness.

Still, if the two men were in the room simultaneously during this BBC interview, it is telling Abu Mazen did not correct the record.

UPDATE: The White House has actually bothered to deny the charge, which means that some reporter was stupid enough to ask about it in the White House briefing in the first place. Happily, this allows The Guardian, for one, to air the charges all over again. Given a choice between Bush and Nabil Shaath, it's no secret whose probity Guardian readers would rely on first. And in this regard, Andrew Blackstock, director of the British-based Christian Socialist Movement, the Guardian's interlocutor in the article, does not disappoint. He takes Shaath's verity seemingly as a matter of faith

"If Bush really wants to obey God during his time as president he should start with what is blindingly obvious from the Bible rather than perceived supernatural messages.

"That would lead him to the rather less glamorous business of prioritising the needs of the poor, the downtrodden and the marginalised in his own country and abroad.

"When we see more policies reflecting that, it might be easier to believe he has God on his side. And more likely that God might speak to him."

Uh huh. In other words, if only Bush were a socialist, this would show he had God on his side.

Humor in the morning is such a delightful thing.

posted by Alcibiades @ 12:06 PM