GEORGE BUSH, CLOSET MODERATE….Alan Cooperman has a peculiar article in the Washington Post today about George Bush’s religious beliefs. The nut of the piece is that Bush isn’t really the religious fundie he’s often made out to be:
Current and former White House aides, as well as religious leaders close to the president, maintain that underneath Bush’s religious references is a no-frills set of classical Christian beliefs that he holds firmly but voices softly. While some of his opponents portray him as a closet fundamentalist, some of his allies cast him as a closet moderate whose differences of opinion and style with the most vociferous elements of the religious right have been played down by his political advisers and underreported by the media.
(Italics mine.)
Why is this peculiar? Because a few days ago I read an article (which I can’t place at the moment) whose main point was that George Bush is really a mainstream, conventional Christian. Nothing scary about him at all.
Now, one article along these lines doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but two articles making the exact same counterintuitive point within the space of a few days does. It means that the White House is deliberately trying to spoon feed this risible new storyline to the public and the press corps is lapping it up. Don’t they ever learn?
