To Debate, or not to Debate?

This appears to be a pivotal day in the Presidential election, yet I am unclear if I am going to watch or tivo King of the Hill. These debates are supposed to show us the candidates and their grasp of the issues. Yet, instead, we seem to get yet another "reality" show that isn't real. The candidates have negotiated and scripted so much of the debate that you wonder if any of this is real. Both sides do this, but there was one line I found the most telling:

"The biggest question mark had been the middle presidential debate, which could put Bush in the unusual position of facing questions from critics. Bush campaign aides had been reluctant to agree to the St. Louis debate, but with the president commanding a solid lead in many polls, especially in Missouri, they decided it did not present much risk.

Are you kidding me? This "democracy" and the leader of this "democracy" does not want to face questions from critics? How do the American people tolerate this?

Speaking of democracy, I am struck by the conversation over at the Parish where Greg's wife relates a story on how many fundys see the election. Concerns about life seem to be very limited to abortion and not reflective of other, very important moral issues.

This made me think of a story on NPR the other morning. Being one of the few "liberal" voices, they do periodic stories about soldiers killed in Iraq and interview their families. This one, as I recall, was a soldier from Oregon. His father spoke of the war in eschatalogical terms. He said it wasn't a war between Iraq and America The Coalition of the Willing, but a spiritual battle between God and, I guess, Satan. "The people who don't understand this, need to dig into their bible and read about it. It is predicted, it is predestined." The father goes on to say that his son knew that Bush was a devout Christian and understood that he needed to go because Bush understands this spiritual war that is going on. This struck me how that it took Bush's individual actions or character or choices or morality completely out of the equation. Bush then becomes God's man for the job--period. He is fighting some apocalyptic battle described in the Bible and so the fact that Bush doesn't act like a Christian is irrelevant. I am certainly aware that this family was speaking out of grief as well, and it would be much easier to address a loss that has a divine calling than a meaningless death in a hopeless war.

This (from Jesus Politics) goes along with this thread. We see a President who is more than willing to use and abuse his religious affiliation in any way possible to get elected.

Boston.com / News/ Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Kerry's Catholicism: "The Republican attack on Kerry's religion goes hand in glove with George W. Bush's exploitation of religion for narrow political purposes. Bush salts his public statements with religious references as a way ofpreempting challenge, a tactic one expects to see in the debate this week. If Jesus is his political philosopher, or if the heavenly father is his adviser on Iraq, then Bush has to explain neither his despotic politics nor his disastrous Iraq policy.

Bush sponsors 'faith based' social projects to disguise his agenda of dismantling structures of government that provide basic human needs. Bush cites religion as a way of justifying a politics of exclusion --wanting America to be a place that bans gay people, keeps women subservient, suspects religious 'outsiders' (whether Muslims or atheists). Such religion is the ground of the 'us versus them' spirit that defines Bush's foreign policy.

Bush uses religion to justify his penchant for violence, which is manifest in nothing so much as his glib use of the word 'evil.' Once an enemy is demonized, transcendent risks can be taken to destroy that enemy. We see this apocalyptic impulse being played out in Iraq today. If in order to obliterate 'evil' it proves necessary to obliterate a whole society -- so be it. A divinity seen as willing the savage murder of an only son as a way of defeating evil is a divinity that blesses an America that destroys Iraq to save it.

So will the debates matter? Will people really care if Bush is a fumbling, bumbling idiot or if he smirks and does that little shoulder shrug at all the inappropriate moments? Will people see God sitting smiling behind Bush? I don't get it. What do people see in this guy?