YOU’VE GOT TO START THEM EARLY . . .

. . . especially if you live in enemy territory.

THE DEFINITION OF “THROWN UNDER THE BUS”

Fr. Andrew Greeley, the iconoclastic Catholic sociologist/novelist, has made an unsurprising presidential endorsement:

There are two proportionate reasons for rejecting President Bush’s bid
for re-election. Both the United States and the world are a mess. Mr.
Bush is responsible for both messes. The first president ever to claim
de facto infallibility, Mr. Bush tells us that he follows his instincts
in decision-making after praying over the decision and talking to God.
He admits no mistakes — how could anyone who has a direct link to God
make a mistake! In his next administration he will receive more divine
inspirations which will make both the country and the world even more
messy.

What? A Catholic priest attacking somebody for praying? He continues:

Do we want him to continue with these god-driven policies for four more
years? Eleven hundred dead Americans already. How many more thousands
will have to die before God will tell Mr. Bush to get out of Iraq? How
many tens of thousands more Iraqis will have to die?

[. . .]

The president, like every human, is entitled to his own relationship
with God. He is entitled to use that relationship to make decisions, to
justify them later, and to stick to them no matter what happens. Many
Americans will accept such decisions because they believe he is a
“godly” man. Not everyone else has to tolerate four more years of his
divine right to govern.

There is something subtle in that first paragraph of the second quote which may be a simple typo and may reveal much more about Greeley’s opinion of Bush’s faith than even I would have expected him to do. I have a shiny new dime for the first person who can tell me what it is.