News Intelligence Analysis
This article was published originally at The Soupletter
Volume 8 Number 39 October 22, 2003
"Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense and understanding."
-Martin Luther
Duck Soup
by Cecil Bothwell
#390: A simple twist of faith
In 1981 James Watt was appointed Secretary of the Interior by President Ronald Reagan. It is difficult to imagine a sorrier choice for that post (although former governor Bush is giving Ronnie a hell of a run for the money).
The reason Watt was the wrong person to be placed in charge of our National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Geological Service -- and all of the wilderness areas, endangered species, waterways and land forms that comprise this nation’s stunning natural beauty and ecological underpinning -- is not simply because he was pro-development and pro-industry, though that didn’t help at all. No, what was frightening to anyone who has an inkling of cause and effect, of action and consequences, is that he believed that the Second Coming was imminent.
There was no need to save anything, because all true believers were soon to be snatched up to heaven and all the rest of everything would be blown to smithereens in the prophesied Armageddon.
Well, Jimmy, we’re waiting. Hmmm. Waiting.
After Watt left office in disgrace for publicly mouthing ethnic slurs about his staff he went on to a profitable career of influence peddling with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and copped a plea in a scandal involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in payoffs. I guess he decided that God helps those who help themselves.
But my point is that when you hire someone to fix your car you generally want someone with wrenches, not a prayer book. You want someone to say, “You’ve got a bad alternator, that will be $300,” not, “Jesus is coming soon, you won’t need to drive.”
Well, the boys are back in town. And it ain’t pretty.
Last June Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld nominated Army Lt. General William G. "Jerry" Boykin for a third star and named him to a new position as deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence. His job description puts him in charge of the search for Osama bin Laden, Saddam and other wascally terrorist wabbits who went to ground following our inept intervention and have thus far evaded capture. Heaven knows someone needs to find them in time for a perp walk before Nov. 2, 2004, or Mr. Bush will face the voters as a failed big game hunter.
Top Gun George Bush as Elmer Fudd. Tsk.
It seems that Boykin is cut from the same cloth as John Ashcroft and other born-agains in the Bush administration.
According to a report by William Arkin in the Los Angeles Times, Boykin spoke from the pulpit of the Good Shepherd Community Church in Sandy, Ore., while he showed slides of the enemies he has been hired to hunt down. "Why do they hate us?" he asked. "The answer to that is because we're a Christian nation We are hated because we are a nation of believers."
Arkin continues, “In Iraq, he told the Oregon congregation, special operations forces were victorious precisely because of their faith in God. ‘Ladies and gentlemen I want to impress upon you that the battle that we're in is a spiritual battle,’ he said . ‘Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army.’”
In other published reports Boykin is quoted as saying that George Bush became president after losing the election because God needed him to fight this holy war.
When this information became public, Boykin copped a plea in the spirit of Watt -- he issued an apology to Moslems, saying that his words had been taken out of context.
Excuse me, but what in the world does context have to do with this? It seems to me that you either believe the things you say publicly, or you are lying. And lying, if memory serves, is a sin to most professed Christians.
Lying, however, is something he (and, of course, his bosses Rumsfeld and Bush) will have to face in the mirror every morning. But we are paying this guy’s salary. He is our mechanic and he is telling us that Satan is in the carburetor.”
Nope. I’m headed for the shop next door. I need a car that works.
Copyright 2003 Cecil Bothwell all rights reserved
Essayist, editor, musician, poet, environmentalist, major appliance repairperson, builder, gardener and stalwart friend to small furry vertebrates, Cecil Bothwell is currently Managing Editor of Asheville’s weekly Mountain Xpress, associate (and founding) editor of the environmental journal Heartstone, and publishing magnate behind the curtain at Brave Ulysses Books. His work has appeared in newspapers and magazines across the country and his radio scripts have been recorded by Jane Goodall and William Least Heat Moon.
Bothwell’s writing reflects disparate and eclectic reading; wide-ranging travel by foot, canoe, train, ship, plane and bicycle; decades of construction and homesteading; and an innordinate fondness for the absurd. He is winner of Society of Professional Journalist Green Eyeshade awards for criticism and humorous commentary, the Southeast Poetry Slam, and is a two time winner of $2 in the Florida Lottery (gift tickets, natch — he abstains from lotteries —anti-democratic scams which inexorably work against the general welfare).
Together with felines Katha, Havoc and Pomonella, his Macs and his cacti, Bothwell lives in downtown Asheville, North Carolina, an urbanite after 30 years in the country — 20 off the grid.
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