Good God, Indeed
By A.M. Siriano (09/10/04)
To conservatives, there is only one mystery more perplexing than Bill Clinton’s annoying popularity: It is the left’s fervent hatred for President Bush. The liberals hold the secret, of course, but after asking many of them to explain it, and getting either a flat denial or a list of fact-deficient charges, I can only conclude that I will never fully “get it” unless I submit to a cult-like ritual of some sort, wherein the truth about our Hitler-hosting President will be revealed on some inarticulate, visceral level.
Actually, the mystery is not so great as all that, and many have offered reasons, including Charles Krauthammer, who recently employed his training as a psychologist to diagnose the left as suffering from an acute case of apoplexy, a condition created by the pressure cooker that was fired up during the “stolen” election in Florida and reached the boiling point when fate turned Bush into a wartime president. Eventually the lid had to blow and, to quote Krauthammer, what we now have “is all quite unhinged. Good God …”
One cannot disagree with that analysis, but it doesn’t address the real issue. While it explains the increase in hatred, it doesn’t help us to understand the hatred itself. It doesn’t tell us why the radical left continues to emulate the Sixties for causes long ago rendered moot by their own failure (communism, for example), or why respected statesmen would put partisanship above patriotism, using half-truths and outright lies to attack our Commander-in-Chief during a time of war. Vitriol apparently destroys reason long before it finds a target, so we must dig a little deeper …
The underlying cause of all this Bush-hatred is this: George W. Bush embodies two ideologies that are diametrically opposed to core leftist thought—the first, capitalism, and the second, biblical Christianity, which is more the crux of the matter.
We have seen this sort of embodiment just recently, in the person of Ronald Reagan, but the viciousness that resulted came nowhere near its present level. Unlike Reagan, who benefited from Hollywood celebrity (earning riches more acceptable to the left), Bush, who was born into wealth, pursued and embraced big business as an individualistic capitalist. And unlike Reagan, whose very fundamentalist Christian beliefs were indeed not worn on his sleeve, Bush is unabashed about his faith and engages it openly as an integral part of his presidency.
Liberals are not against wealth per se, inherited or elsewise, as long as the lucky stiff maintains that he believes in the socialistic distribution of the stuff. In other words, he must effectively denounce the very means by which his wealth was acquired. This is elitism and helps to insulate the rich, for they know that socialism reduces the chances of the poor to crawl out of the mire and gain true wealth for themselves.
Liberals also are not against religion per se, as long as it is innocuous and, morally speaking, never intrusive. Reagan was suspected to be religious, but Bush is in-your-face about it (by paranoid liberal standards). If he had his way, they suspect, he would be sending out his goons to force conversion by the edge of a sword.
We should not be surprised when people revile a godly man. Christ affirmed that hatred of this sort marks a man for his righteousness: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.” When the moral high ground of the left compels them to disrupt the streets of New York, randomly punching delegates or letting their children carry signs that say “F___ you, Bush,” it is very clear who is righteous and who is ungodly.
But let’s clarify something: Godliness does not mean piousness. I have known many godly men and women who aren’t hollow moralists or even “speak the language.” Godliness does not mean giving lip service to religion. Public displays of piety require nothing of the individual, which is why Bill Clinton had no trouble carrying a Bible in front of the camera, only to return to the Oval Office for tasty cigars behind closed doors.
Godliness does not mean a strict adherence to a set of standards defined by men, but it does mean that God and his concerns are prime considerations. A godly man, no matter his religion or denomination, places God above himself and strives to live up to a divine expectation, and even though he realizes he can never measure up, he never stops trying.
George Bush is recognized by his own as a godly man, for they “know them by their fruits.” His actions, even before September 11, 2001, proved to his supporters that he cared about his fellow man, no matter people’s circumstances, their place in society, or the color of their skin. This one man, in just four years, has made tremendous accomplishments, forcing significant reforms in education and healthcare, funding Africa in their struggle to stop AIDS, freeing millions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and severely damaging the reach of terrorism in order to protect the homeland; and he has brought dignity back to the White House. His fruits are obviously from a well-rooted Tree.
The left can never admit this, of course, even when Bush champions one of their own causes—AIDS in Africa, for example. Were Bush fighting this disease by way of humanistic standards, he would have been lauded. Were he helping the inner cities through handouts instead of his traditional message of American opportunity, he would be every bit as popular as President Clinton. But he chooses a higher path, and so is reviled.
President Bush believes in the dignity of man, which explains his adherence to capitalism. More importantly, he believes in the God who is behind that dignity, which explains his love for Christ. Good God, indeed: President Bush stands as a clear beacon of the very ideals leftists abhor, and that, my friends, is why they hate him.
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