George Bush's False Morality

As he prepares to leave office after causing untold damage to the USA and world, the Chimperator seems totally lacking in remorse and continues to view himself as a moral and righteous person. Torture: not a problem. Taking the country to war based on lies: not a problem. Ignoring the needs of the poor and sick: not a problem. Unfortunately, Bush is all too typical of the Christianist (and similar fundamentalist) mindsets that ignore objective reality, dismiss scientific knowledge and close their minds to anything that doesn't conform to their simplistic and mindless religious beliefs. Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, a professor of theology at Chicago Theological Seminary and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, has a column in the Washington Post that analyzes Bush's sick morality. Here are some highlights:

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It may seem contradictory to many that President Bush thinks America's moral standing in the world has not been harmed during his tenure. He believes this despite a widespread practice of torture and systemic civil rights violations of "enemy combatants" during his administration. But if you adopt the President's definition of morality, the contradiction disappears.

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As Bob Woodward documented in his book, Plan of Attack, President Bush's particular kind of Christian faith has given him an extremely high degree of moral certainty that the actions he has undertaken to protect the United States from terror are by definition justified. We are fighting the "axis of evil" and so we must be the agents of the good.

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President Bush's rigid moral certainty has left him no room to see the contradictions between torture and goodness. This rigid moral certainty made it possible for this man, who claims to be a serious person of faith, to have as his legacy the sustained and deliberate policy to torture prisoners and to render them to "black ops" sites outside the United States for horrific maltreatment.

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The world has a different definition of America's moral standing. On May 4, 2004, the graphic pictures of prisoners being tortured at the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison raced around the world. What the world saw was the face of the United States, not as the symbol of freedom and democracy, but as a nation turned rogue state like Argentina under its military junta, South Africa under Apartheid, or Germany in the Nazi era.

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President Bush's definition of what it means for the country to act morally needs to be thoroughly rejected along with the shameful practices of rendition and torture. Candidate Barack Obama promised the country change and the country agreed. One of the biggest things President Obama and the country need to change in the next four years is the definition of what it means for this country to act morally.