An article in this month’s issue of GQ magazine accuses Donald Rumsfeld of manipulating President Bush with his one weakness… words.
But not just any words, scripture. Bush reportedly received daily intelligence briefings with cover sheets that featured Biblical quotes such as “It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men,” which appeared above a photograph of Saddam Hussein.
David Kuo, head of Bush’s White House “faith-based” program, told CNN “The guy knows how to market things, and clearly he knew how to market things to his boss, to his audience of one — the president of the United States. And that was to use these biblical quotes.”
A spokesman for Rumsfeld denies that Bush ever saw the cover sheets, “The report was briefed regularly to senior military officials in the Pentagon – only occasionally to the Secretary of Defense and not to the President of the United States. ” However when the creator of the slides, Major General Shaffer, received several complaints he defended them by saying they’re “appreciated by my seniors” (Bush & Rumsfeld).
Pentagon officials said they were worried that if the cover sheets ever got out they would give credibility to the notion that America is fighting a war on Islam, but apparently no one of them owns a shredder.
As bad as this story is, GQ is just making it worse. Printing this story is the same as the ACLU suing to release more Abu Ghraib photos. What’s the point?
Bush is gone: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
Even Obama realizes we need to move on. After all it’s not as though the extremists are going to distinguish between administrations.