Recall that the last time Bush was quoted as saying “God wants me to be President”, the press got it wrong.
Now we have Palestinian Prime Minister Abbas quoting Bush as saying According to Abbas, immediately thereafter Bush said: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East.
This quote – which may not be accurate – will give all the secular intellectuals and liberals even more reason to think Bush a fool or worse. It should give believers pause as well. It may be that his statement was more modest. I hope someone digs out the correct quote.
Linked with Beltway Traffic Jam for today.
Update: Drudge has put up a link saying that "The White House has denied that US President George W. Bush said God told him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, as a new BBC documentary is expected to reveal.
"That's absurd. He's never made such comments," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Thursday.
The documentary series set to be broadcast later this month in Britain claims Bush made the claim when he met Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and then-foreign minister Nabil Shaath in June 2003.
...
Shaath, now the Palestinian information minister, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God'".
The last sentence, placed in a different context, might not sound so grandiose. Many of Bush''s critics will take it as evidence that he is delusional. Yet, Lincoln and other Presidents, felt that they were responding to a divine call. They were just much more modest about their ability to discern the particulars of the call.
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