A reminder (and an excellent, measured recitation to boot) to keep in the forefront of consciousness when you go on 11/7 to exercise yourWMD: Weapon of Mass Democracy in support of an agenda of freedom and in firm support of the foundations and exercise of liberty to begin making America America again, politically constructing a “Stop! Detour!” sign on the road and and in opposition to a foundational and antediluvian driver of the agenda of the woebegone G. Walker administration by yanking control of at least one chamber of the people’s voice — the Congress — from the Bush-subservient Republicans now in charge.

Bush talks evangelical talk as no other president has, including Jimmy Carter, who also talked the language of the secular Enlightenment culture that evangelists despise. Bush told various evangelical groups that he felt God had called him to run for president in 2000: “I know it won’t be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.”

Bush promised his evangelical followers faith-based social services, which he called “compassionate conservatism.” He went beyond that to give them a faith-based war, faith-based law enforcement, faith-based education, faith-based medicine, and faith-based science. He could deliver on his promises because he stocked the agencies handling all these problems, in large degree, with born-again Christians of his own variety. The evangelicals had complained for years that they were not able to affect policy because liberals left over from previous administrations were in all the health and education and social service bureaus, at the operational level. They had specific people they objected to, and they had specific people with whom to replace them, and Karl Rove helped them do just that.

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The deputy undersecretary for defense intelligence, General William (Jerry) Boykin–a man leading the search for bin Laden–made headlines during the Iraq war with a slide- show lecture he gave in churches. He appeared there not in his dress uniform but in combat gear. He asked audiences (this was after the 2000 election and before the 2004 one):

     Ask yourself this: why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote
     for him. Why is he there?… I tell you this morning he’s in the White House because God put
     him there for such a time as this. God put him there to lead not only this nation but to lead
     the world, in such a time as this.

Then he asked the congregation who the enemy is. He showed slides of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, and Taliban leaders, asking of each, “Is this man the enemy?” He gave a resounding no to each question, and then revealed the foe’s true identity:

     The battle this nation is in is a spiritual battle, it’s a battle for our soul. And the enemy is a guy
     called Satan…. Satan wants to destroy this nation. He wants to destroy us as a nation, and he
     wants to destroy us as a Christian army.

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When General Edwin Walker began to promote the John Birch Society to his NATO troops, President Kennedy removed him. What happened to General Boykin after he went around calling Muslims Satanic? He was not silenced, demoted, removed, or even criticized. He has continued to work on the Pentagon’s special intelligence group.…

There was nothing surprising in all this. Boykin was just repeating what other evangelicals had been saying about the war in Iraq. Charles Stanley, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote: “We should offer to serve the war effort in any way possible…. God battles with people who oppose him, who fight against him and his followers.” Jerry Falwell put it succinctly in 2004: “God is pro-war.” For some evangelicals, this was a war against the enemies of Israel, who are by definition anti-God. The evangelical writer Tim LaHaye called it, therefore, “a focal point of end-time events.” For others, it was a chance to spread Christianity to the infidels. An article syndicated on the Southern Baptist Convention’s wire service said that “American foreign policy and military might have opened an opportunity for the Gospel in the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, and Marvin Olasky, the inventor of Bush’s “compassionate conservatism,” agreed. Boykin’s was not a lone voice, then, but that of a member in good standing of the community that supported Bush on religious grounds, even in his warfare. Boykin was safe under the sheltering wings of a religious right that the White House did not dare to cross.

God’s war needs God’s warriors, and the White House was ready to supply them.…

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That was proved when the first director of Iraqi health services, Dr. Frederick Burkle, was dismissed. Burkle, a distinguished physician, was a specialist in disaster relief, with experience in Kosovo, Somalia, and Kurdish Iraq. His replacement, James Haverman, had run a Christian adoption agency meant to discourage women from having abortions. Haverman placed an early emphasis on preventing Iraqis from smoking, while ruined hospitals went untended. This may suggest the policy on appointments that put Michael Brown in charge of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but the parallel is insufficiently harsh. Chris Matthews brought it up on his television show while interviewing the Washington Post reporter who had covered the CPA in Iraq, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, who said, “There were a hundred Browns in Iraq.” But there were Bible study groups in the Green Zone.

There is a particular danger with a war that God commands. What if God should lose? That is unthinkable to the evangelicals. They cannot accept the idea of second-guessing God, and he was the one who led them into war.… Article