New Bush Narratives

Time Magazine is generally not a publication I trust to deliver earth-shattering scoops, but an article there caught my eye the other day. This piece by Michael Duffy begins by describing how an integral part of the Bush As Decider narrative is his resistance to fickle changes of heart. However, as polls consistently show disapproval ratings for Bush flirting around 60%, it becomes increasingly clear that people have given up on something about the perpetual Bush narrative.

A crucial corollary to the Bush As Someone Whose Mind Is Made Up narrative has always been the Bush Is Someone Who Has Experienced Evangelical Rebirth narrative. This second narrative relies heavily on the story of Bush giving up alcoholism in a moment of piety. However, as he continues to belatedly acknowledge that his decisions suck (by waiting until the second he loses his Congressional majority to fire Rusmfeld, for example), the part of the narrative where he formerly made stupid mistakes until he repented becomes less and less plausible. As Duffy points out, instead of now seeming like a saved and prostrate pietist, Bush now just seems like someone who habitually waits far too long to correct his mistakes. If he's such a great decider, why did he decide to wait until he was in his forties to pull his shit together in life?

Causation is difficult for someone as atheistic as me to put together in this case, but one is forced to notice the correlation between the putrefaction of the Evangelical Bush narrative and the cracks surfacing in the Evangelicals As Wacky, Partisan Culture Warriors narrative. With the caveat that whatever transition might be happening is clearly in a callow, liminal state, we are starting to see such cracks. For example, recently the president-elect of the Christian Coalition had to step aside because he thought evangelicals should stop worrying exclusively about what's going on in other people's uteri and move on to dealing with life's little ennui and minutiae, such as the horrible, crippling poverty most of the world lives in and the imminent destruction of our planet. Despite this gentleman's resignation, the notable development here is that someone from within the conservative evangelical fortress even suggested worrying about things that matter but are not titillating.

Likewise, when megachurch rockstar Rick Warren recently invited Barack Obama to speak about AIDS at his compound in the inland LA suburbs, it was a stunning moment for the openness of the movement. In addition to not being a Republican, Obama believes in a woman's right to control her own body. I believe that what this represents is not just the Democratic sophism that Obama is the one who will swoop down from heaven to help us connect with religious swing voters, but the new reality that Democrats are in fact well positioned to connect with evangelicals on several critical levels. Despite their years of instruction in the evils of letting Terri Shiavo rest and expressing your love for any human being of any sex, many rank and file evangelicals are starting to depart from the teachings of their wizards, shamans, and witch doctors by placing more emphasis on ending genocide and poverty and fixing the environment. Just to spell this out a little, those are EXACTLY the kinds of things liberals are usually concerned with.

And hey, there happen to be a couple of liberal names being mentioned in the 2008 presidential picture whose credentials are based on precisely such issues. John Edwards has been talking about poverty for quite a while, and he has been doing so in very moral terms. Al Gore has famously renewed himself as a public servant by going on his environment tear. Even Obama has been willing to talk about things like universal health care. While Hillary Clinton may be the one claiming to be an evangelical, the others are the ones who are taking the moral stands that are actually needed to connect to religious conservatives.