Saturday, October 08, 2005
TRUE BELIEVERS
Mark Steyn on those bogus BBC Bush God quotes:
I know plenty of journalists who in the course of their careers like to tweak and improve a quote every so often. You know, the guy doesn’t say quite what you want him to say, so you give it a nudge that’s a little more pithily expressed. There’s a lot of journalists who do that. They’re not meant to do it, but the trick, if you’re going to pass off fake quotes, is they shouldn’t be so obviously fake. And this one is.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and White House spokesman Scott McClellan have since both issued denials; Nabil Shaath now says he didn’t take Bush’s alleged words literally; and even the BBC is backing down (although, as Damian Penny points out, this is assumed by The Guardian to be the result of shadowy Murdoch influence rather than any doubts over the story).
So, who fell for this? Well, there were a pair of dopes in The Australian’s letters pages (“Any credibility the US may have had for leading a secular, morally superior campaign against terrorism is shattered”), and The Guardian and The Independent, which on Friday ran the quotes on their front pages. Here’s the Indy’s Rupert Cornwell:
The BBC reported that the White House had dismissed the allegations as “absurd”. “He’s never made such comments,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
But the BBC account is anything but implausible, given that throughout his presidency Mr Bush, a born-again Christian, has never hidden the importance of his faith.
Why, it just stands to reason that such a man would say things like: “God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did.” The Guardian’s Simon Hoggart also suspended his cynicism:
Horrible to learn that George Bush gets messages from God. Just what we need in the world: one more powerful man who knows precisely what is in God’s mind.
Also in The Guardian, the original plastic turkey dunce himself, Mark Lawson, senses “panic” in White House denials:
A West Winger has rubbished suggestions by former Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath (made in a new BBC2 series from the distinguished and highly reliable film-maker Norma Percy) that Bush had confided the Almighty’s role as a sort of super national security adviser, a secretary of higher state.
That Percy may be “distinguished and highly reliable” bears no influence on the accuracy of Shaath’s claims. She merely filmed him as he spoke.
The likeliest reason for the White House’s panic is that they can see the trap set by the Shaath anecdote. Bush’s previous religious admissions have suggested that God was a kind of vice-president, whereas it now seems that George is the running mate.
To what “panic” does Lawson refer? White House spokesman Scott McClelland took a total of four questions on the matter towards the end of a routine press conference; his total responses amounted to just 75 words. Lawson, as earlier, is just making things up. Keep the fantasies coming, Mark:
Even before the Palestinian insight into his beliefs, we can guess that the president’s theology was in a mess. Throughout his five years in office, Bush has sustained a simple old Sunday-school world view in which external evil threatens American interests and is then met by force which believes it has God on its side. The fact that the perceived aggressors (Bin Laden, Saddam) also feel divinely justified is no more of an obstacle to this belief system than it has been for the religious throughout history.
Hurricane Katrina, though, severely challenges this exegesis. What can a president of such simple religious faith have made of the devastation of America by what insurance policies call an act of God? Whereas even an event as terrible as 9/11 could be sustaining and confirmational for someone of Bush’s apparent Manichean convictions, a sudden drowning of the chosen invites only agonised study of the Book of Job. This affront to Bush’s relationship with God may explain his public bewilderment during the weather crisis.
Lawson believes in plastic turkeys and non-existent panic. Isn’t Bush meant to be the guy with the simple world view?