"God told me to"

This is all over the British press this morning. The Guardian and the Independent are my favorites. I like the Guardian simply for the photograph they use to accompany their article. The Independent's article is the best, however, for the naked religious bigotry on display.

The gist of the story is that in an upcoming BBC documentary former Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath claims that during a 2003 meeting that he and Mahmoud Abbas had with President Bush that the President said he was told by God to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. First of all, neither the Guardian nor the Independent entertains the possibility that either (a) Mr. Shaath is misremembering or (b) Mr. Shaath misunderstood what President Bush had said. No, as far as these two papers are concerned this is exactly what happened.

The Independent goes so far to say that "the BBC account is anything but implausible, given how throughout his presidency Mr Bush, a born-again Christian, has never hidden the importance of his faith". Oh well, that's it then. Yet, just after that the Independent article refers to Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack, " the definitive account of the administration's road to war in Iraq", in which Woodward writes:

after giving the order to invade in March 2003, he walked in the White House garden, praying "that our troops be safe, be protected by the Almighty". As he went into this critical period, he told Mr Woodward, "I was praying for strength to do the Lord's will.

"I'm surely not going to justify war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case, I pray that I will be as good a messenger of His will as possible. And then of course, I pray for forgiveness."

I always get a little nervous when I stray into matters theological because I'm just not that sure of myself. Yet, to my untrained eye there is a Grand Canyon sized gap between "God told me to" and "I pray that I will be as good a messenger of His will as possible".

I'm willing to accept that Mr. Shaath may have misremembered a word or two or that perhaps his English is not sufficient to pick up the different nuances of what can be massive differences when it comes to matters of theology. I don't really fault Mr. Shaath here, but there's no way that President Bush would not have understood how politically loaded such a statement would be and it seems "implausible" to me that he would make such a politically loaded remark to two people from the Palestinian government.

Above I used the word 'bigotry' and it's clear that the Rupert Cornwell, who wrote this story, and the editor, who decided that this - THIS - is the top story for today, believe that President Bush's faith and his beliefs are so outrageous, so bizarre that he is not fit to be President. That's bigotry.

{And, shame on the Irish Independent for running with Cornwell's story too, although not as the top story today.}