"I'M NOT PLEASED"

I've been trying as hard as I can to avert my eyes from this week's Newsweek story on Bush and his love affair with that guy, God. The picture at the top of the link is surely reason enough. Make sure you're wearing an expendable shirt if you decide to read the drivel from Howard.

What also bothered TFM was the interactive poll on the left column:

Does George W. Bush's religious faith inappropriately dictate policy?

34% Yes. Church and state are supposed to be separated.

63% No. What's wrong with bringing morality to the White House?

3% I don't know.

Um, excuse me Newsweek, MSNBC and Bill Gates. Let me be absolutely clear: Morality and religion are two completely different things. Yes, there's some overlap, and the two concepts could probably be best presented as cocentric circles. I, for example, am moral but not religious. Others, certainly, are religious but not moral. And my guess is that across the earth, a plurality of people are both religious and moral. Therefore, the online poll is, well, fucked up and biased. Are they trying to tell us that Laine Hanson, the fictional VP nominee from The Contender (played masterfully by Joan Allen) would be an immoral leader because she is an avowed non-religious person?

The increasing number of people in America without health insurance (44million by last count), for example, and Bush's upcoming attempts to privatize such services, coupled with meager amounts of money for Medicare, tell me something about the acting president's morality.