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What his faith stories have in common is the way they put George W. Bush's religious experiences to political use. The beliefs themselves may be entirely genuine. But Bush does not appear to surrender himself to the will of God in the way a conventionally religious person does.

But the more interesting revelation is how politically Bush thinks about religion. Speaking of an upcoming meeting with evangelical leaders, he notes: "As you said, there are some code words. There are some proper ways to say things and some improper ways. I am going to say that I've accepted Christ into my life. And that's a true statement." On another tape, he rehearses his dodges. He goes over with Wead what he plans to tell James Robison, an evangelical minister in Texas who wanted him to promise not to appoint homosexuals in his administration: "Look, James, I got to tell you two things right off the bat. One, I'm not going to kick gays, because I'm a sinner. How can I differentiate sin?" For those interested in the details about what kind of sinner he was, Bush has another line: "That's part of my shtick, which is, look, we have all made mistakes."

The tapes reveal how calculated George W. Bush's projection of faith is. Wead said that during the countless hours the two spent talking about religion over a dozen years, they discussed endlessly the implications of attending services at different congregations, how Bush could position himself in relation to various tricky questions, and how he should handle various ministers and evangelical leaders. But the substance of Bush's own faith never came up. Wead told me he now struggles with the question of how sincere Bush's expressions of devotion ever were. He often goes over their conversations from 1987 and 1988 in his mind, having grown more skeptical about what Bush was doing. "As these memos started flowing to him, he started feeding back to me what his faith was," Wead said. "Now what is interesting for me, and I'm trying to understand, is, was I giving him his story?"

bcspace wrote:Compared to the other choices we've had, Bush is far closer to God's president than any democrat could possibly hope to be.

I'm interested... I think Bush is disingenuous, as many politicians are when they say their faith is compelling them to take certain actions... I don't know this to be true. Just my intuition on the matter.

Why is that? What policies are you thinking about specifically?

bcspace wrote:

I'm interested... I think Bush is disingenuous, as many politicians are when they say their faith is compelling them to take certain actions... I don't know this to be true. Just my intuition on the matter.

I don't think he's disingenuous, but I do think, like most nonLDS Christians he does not understand his faith. He's certianly not been perfect. Only better than the other choices.

Why is that? What policies are you thinking about specifically?

Socialism and a host of other moral issues.

bcspace wrote:

I'm interested... I think Bush is disingenuous, as many politicians are when they say their faith is compelling them to take certain actions... I don't know this to be true. Just my intuition on the matter.

I don't think he's disingenuous, but I do think, like most nonLDS Christians he does not understand his faith. He's certianly not been perfect. Only better than the other choices.

Why is that? What policies are you thinking about specifically?

Socialism and a host of other moral issues.

bcspace wrote:Compared to the other choices we've had, Bush is far closer to God's president than any democrat could possibly hope to be.