Wednesday, September 14, 2011

"A...less subtle guy than George W. Bush"

In this WaPo piece about Rick Perry's speech at Falwell's university, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention is quoted as saying that Perry is a "more overt, less subtle guy than George W. Bush" and therefore will be inclined to talk more openly about his religion.

To which one appropriate response would seem to be: my God, must we go through this? My current lack of a functioning television begins to seem more and more, um, providential.

4 comments:

e julius drivingstorm said...

President Bush appointed Richard Land to head up the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in 2001. Dr. Land in turn sent the president a letter, signed by himself and four other evangelical leaders, essentially annointing the coming preemptive war in Iraq as a "just war" based on their interpretation of fourth century Christian Church philosophy.

President Bush then reappointed Richard Land in 2004.

I'm not trying to show causation here, only correlation (since I just read Freakonomics).

Anyway, the Wikipedia article on the Land Letter shows the main bullet points. One of the points is based on Hussein's "headlong pursuit" of wmds and Iraq's "harboring" of Al Qaeda.

LFC said...

Interesting, thanks. I'll check out the W. article on the Land Letter. Sounds hallucinatory (Iraq's 'harboring' of al-Qaeda), perhaps even by Bush-Cheney standards.

hank_F_M said...

LFC/Julius



They are attempting to follow the classic just war doctrine, which is pretty much International law, unles the UN Charters Article 43 superceeds, 10 yes votes on the Securty Council, no vetos, and a pro forma statement that there is threat to peace.

The should have taken a course with Charli Carpenter, she would disagree with them on the issue, but they would know how to it right, as well as fact check.



Hank’s Eclectic Meanderings

LFC said...

I got sidetracked on something, so haven't checked out the Land Letter yet.

Charli Carpenter knows a lot more about the law of war (a/k/a int'l humanitarian law) than I do, that's for damn sure.

[OTOH, I probably know more about certain subjects than she does. ;)]