Jay Bee Two

Wow, I think Maureen Dowd pretty much hits the nail on the head about Bush in her latest column, Awake and Scream:

Whenever W. does something legally sketchy and morally ambiguous — from pre-emptive war to spying to torturing — he claims he’s doing it to protect Americans from terrorists. But there’s a more visceral agenda: Vice and Rummy have persuaded W. he will not carry a big stick if bound by Lilliputian legalities, tiresome checks and balances and Kumbaya international conventions. Rather than being alarmed at their battiness, the president naively admires what he sees as bravado.

Of course, I don’t know Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld personally, but that really seems to be accurate from what I have seen of them.

This part’s even more scary, though:

Besides saying he’s in ”a struggle between good and evil” — which inflames many Muslims — W. told the columnists he thought America might be experiencing ”a Third Awakening,” a religious fervor, because people he meets in rope lines tell him they’re praying for him.

How is increased religious fervor a good thing in Bush’s view? Did he forget about 9/11, and what strong religious beliefs did then? How can anyone think that religious fervor has ever done anything positive throughout history?