from Kevin Phillips' recent book, as quoted by Paul Krugman in the NY
Review of Books:
Bush's day-to-day language was a veritable biblical message center.
Besides the ever-present references to "evil" and "evil ones," chief
White House speechwriter Michael Gerson, a onetime college theology
major, filled George W. Bush's delivery system with phrases that, while
inoffensive to secular voters, directed more specific religious messages
to the faithful....
Biblical scholar Bruce Lincoln's line-by-line analysis of Bush's
October 7, 2001, address to the nation announcing the US attack on
Afghanistan identified a half dozen veiled borrowings from the Book of
Revelation, Isaiah, Job, Matthew, and Jeremiah. He concluded that for
those with ears to hear a biblical subtext, "by the [speech's] end
America's adversaries have been redefined as enemies of God and current
events have been constituted as confirmation of scripture."
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Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
