The Divine Mr. W

Damn, I guess Howard Fineman was unhappy that Bob Woodward replaced him as MWO's Whore of the Year this year. He's reaching for that golden crown again:

Bush and God: A higher calling: It is his defining journey—from reveler to revelation. A biography of his faith, and how he wields it as he leads a nation on the brink of war

Warning: Only for those able to stomach large dollops of Bush fellation. It is worthwhile, though, in further burnishing some observations made earlier about Bush's open promotion of the image of the Divinely Inspired Presidency, as well as the depth of the Busheviks' ties to the religious right:

Bush and Rove built their joint careers on that new base. Faith and ambition became one, with Bush doing the talking and Rove doing the thinking on policy and spin. In 1993—the year before he ran for governor—Bush caused a small tempest by telling an Austin reporter (who happened to be Jewish) that only believers in Jesus go to heaven. It was a theologically unremarkable statement, at least in Texas. But the fact that he had been brazen enough to say it produced a stir. While the editorial writers huffed, Rove quietly expressed satisfaction. The story would help establish his client’s Bible-belt bona fides in rural (and, until then, primarily Democratic) Texas. As a candidate, Bush sought, and got, advice from pastors, especially leaders of new, nondenominational “megachurches” in the suburbs. His ideas for governing were congenial to his faith, and dreamed up in his faith circles. The ideas were designed to draw evangelicals to the polls without sounding too church-made. “Compassionate conservatism”—mentoring, tough love on crime, faith-based welfare—was in many ways just a CBS Bible study writ large ...

The presidential campaign was Texas on a grander scale. As he prepared to run, in 1999, Bush assembled leading pastors at the governor’s mansion for a “laying-on of hands,” and told them he’d been “called” to seek higher office. In the GOP primaries, he outmaneuvered the field by practicing what one rival, Gary Bauer, called “identity politics.” Others tried to woo evangelicals by pledging strict allegiance on issues such as abortion and gay rights. “Bush talked about his faith,” said Bauer, “and people just believed him—and believed in him.” There was genius in this. The son of Bush One was widely, logically, believed by secular voters to be a closet moderate. Suddenly, the father’s burden was a gift: Bush Two could reach the base without threatening the rest. “He was and is ‘one of us’,” said Charles Colson, who sold the then Governor Bush on a faith-based prison program.

Of course, the deeper ramifications of this close identification of Bush with fundamentalists' religious beliefs vis-a-vis the End Times are especially disturbing. If nothing else, it should be eminently clear that the religious right, including its overt theocrats, has always comprised the core of Bush's constituency, and is clearly prepared to do "whatever it takes" to defend his Divine Presidency.