Mea Culpa

Mea maxima culpa!

I thought it was just a little white fib designed to carry Iowa, Nebraska and Alabama. When during the race for his first term for president Bush was asked, “What political philosopher do you identify with…?” his disingenuous reply of, “Jesus Christ,” seemed to many viewers, including me, to be just a little hokey. I was wrong; he meant it. And his behavior since has shown that he still doesn’t know the difference between philosophy and religion.

Yale graduates should know the general difference between the two with philosophers pursuing the truth and theologians (and I’ll place the Lord in this category) possessing it. The president has demonstrated time and again that he is governed more by theology than by an objective view of the world around him.

Mr. Bush’s messianic behavior and his certainty and stubbornness in all things have brought him and his followers (that includes all of us) to grief. His certainty that Saddam’s government had weapons of mass destruction and in failing to show patience with the U.N. inspection program before attacking Iraq has led to his standing with the public and America’s low standing in the community of nations.

I blanched when Dubya named his political philosopher, but I went to the polls in November 2000 and pulled the lever next to his name. And while I was among the earliest of Republican defectors when the war drums began beating for an attack on Baghdad and only lately has that trickle away from the GOP turned into a flood, it was my great fault for not seeing that the man was telling the truth and portending all that has come to pass with his simple and direct reply.

Mea culpa America; mea maxima culpa. It’s my fault as much as George’s. I should have known.

Blog on!

Wild Bill