Bush commutes Libby sentence

[kandrathe]

Formulate your beliefs how you like, but for governing, you must be secular. That's the whole spirit of the separation of church and state.

There is no part of the Constitution that regulates the "separation of church and state". It was cited, out of context, in a letter written to religious leaders by Jefferson. The Constitution bars any law to be made establishing (favoring) a religion, or from preventing the free exercise of a religion. It seems incongruous to me that you would make that statement which actually does violate the Constitution in preventing any person, including the President, of his exercise of religion, or his ability to have free speech. Then, you are referring as fact the following;

According to Prime Minister Mahmoud Abas, 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. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.'"

Before you jump to any conclusions, remember that you are reading a translation of a translation of a translation. Mahmoud Abas does not speak English. Bush does not speak Arabic. If Bush said these words, or something like them, Abas heard them from a translator. Then Abas repeated them, as he remembered them a couple of weeks later, in Arabic. Some unknown person wrote down what he thought he heard Abas say. Then Regular, or someone at Ha'aretz, translated them back into English-or perhaps first into Hebrew and then into English.

So, a pretty thin condemnation. You believe what you like. I think he probably spoke with the Vice President, his personal advisors, his cabinet, the National Security Adviser and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He probably also did pray, which in loose translation might be interpreted as "spoke with God".