(George Bush) is arguably the worst president in the history of the United States. He is unfit for the office of president of the United States. He has trouble speaking the English language and articulating a point of view. Second, he has led us into a war—in which my son, by the way, fought—on false pretenses. That is a terrible thing. Bush is personally responsible for the displacement of the Christian minority in Iraq. It was the last large Christian minority anywhere in the Middle East, and it has been destroyed. It is ironic that someone who proclaims he is a Christian president has single-handedly started a war that has undone the last Christian minority in the Middle East. Now it is wall-to-wall Islam from Tehran all the way to the Mediterranean with the exception of Israel. There is not one place outside of Syria that still has that intact Christian minority now.
Who said this?
18 comments:
I am going to guess, but I have no idea really. Even though I have some sympathy for their view, I would say Al Gore but I think even he knows he couldn't get away with claiming his son fought in Iraq.
The fact this person is unaware of the large Christian minority in Lebanon tells me it could be a leftist, but the fact they are concerned about Christians who don't vote in the US tells me it probably is not.
Then again, it might be Wesley Clark, the man who almost started a shooting war against Russia while in command in Bosnia. This has almost the right amount of demagoguery and not-quite-solid grasp of the facts to be Clark.
I want to say Pat Buchanan, but he has no children. Maybe Joe Sobran?
All right, here's my guesses: Joe Sobran or Wesley Clark. Either that or someone like Bob Jones XIX or whatever number they're on now.
No Cigar.
It was Frank Schaeffer - son of Francis Schaeffer.
I'm not very familiar with Frank. I never would have guessed it.
Where did you find that quote?
Click here.
Thanks. Interesting reading. I may check out some of his books.
I found the interview with Whitehead the most interesting of the articles, since it was in Schaeffer's own words and not filtered through the biases of a particular reviewer.
"There is not one place outside of Syria that still has that intact Christian minority now."
bblbeamer--In my book (as a half-Lebanese-American Christian), he kind of gets away with it, since Lebanon is almost a part of Syria anyway. (Speaking off the cuff, perhaps he meant Lebanon instead of Syria.)
Is it the self-described "christocrat" Kevin Craig? Mr. Craig is running for the Missouri 7th district House of Representatives seat. From my perspective, he is a nut!
chestertonian rambler: Perhaps he did. Since he lived much of his life outside the US, I'm pretty sure he knows better. You're probably right, he was speaking off the cuff and if he'd thought about it he'd have been more precise.
Besides, it almost guarantees a positive review in "The Nation" if he accuses G. W. Bush of single handedly destroying Middle East Christianity. As if the reality wasn't enough...
My natural cynicism is raising its ugly head here, but he does have books to sell, and my guess is he knows the likely audience for his books, and what they are likely to want to hear.
So sorry, got my websites mixed up - I believe the quote comes from Frank Schaffer.
mrs. beamer is learning the hazards of posting while involved in a dispute with our son.
I love you, honey!
You Beamer's crack me up! ;-)
I always find statements like "arguably" or as a work colleague used to say "for argument's sake" very dubious. What do they mean? Should the reader ie ME - Start a debate on the merits of the case.
I thought BL stated weeks ago that J. Carter was the worst president.
And what do we do with R. Nixon?
or even U.S. Grant.
BTW I am reading Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" and I suppose he would nominate D. Rumsfeld as worst SoD. Bob seems to have sympathy for George but makes clear that George never asked enough questions.
Ron, I said that J. Carter was a jerk, not that he was our worst president. He's probably our worst ex-president, though. Investor's Business Daily believes he's our worst. I believe he's certainly in the bottom five. I think Hoover is, too.
I read Schaeffer's use of "arguably" as "the case could be made" or "I'm convinced the case is made".
The discussion of who's our worst president can't be conducted unless you define worst: compared to what standard?
Ah - so should we start a BEST USA president discussion.
Obviously includes Roosevelt - ah which or both
My (probably surprising) faves: Washington, Cleveland, Coolidge, Eisenhower.
My worst: Hoover, Jackson, Nixon, Carter, Wilson.
Jackson because of his Indian policy "Move or die"; Wilson because he instituted racial segregation for federal offices, setting back civil rights by decades;
Carter because of his vanity, sanctimoniousness and ineptitude; Hoover because he had several chances to minimize the Depression at its onset and failed each and every time, and in fact made it worse; Nixon for obvious reasons. Each of my worsts did things I agreed with, but their failures significantly outweighed those things.
Beamer, Carter's my hero. He's the only one who ever "got" peak oil and exponential growth.
If only the western world had taken his famous "Malaise speech" more seriously we might have a full blown "electron economy" by now and be completely off oil! Try some of these quotes from that famous speech, and see whether or not American's are starting to say similar things today.
****
"We can't go on consuming 40 percent more energy than we produce. When we import oil we are also importing inflation plus unemployment."
"We've got to use what we have. The Middle East has only five percent of the world's energy, but the United States has 24 percent."
And this is one of the most vivid statements: "Our neck is stretched over the fence and OPEC has a knife."
****
What I have to say to you now about energy is simple and vitally important.
Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 -- never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the 1980s, for I am tonight setting the further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the end of the next decade -- a saving of over 4-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day.
Point two: To ensure that we meet these targets, I will use my presidential authority to set import quotas. I'm announcing tonight that for 1979 and 1980, I will forbid the entry into this country of one drop of foreign oil more than these goals allow. These quotas will ensure a reduction in imports even below the ambitious levels we set at the recent Tokyo summit.
Point three: To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation's history to develop America's own alternative sources of fuel -- from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the sun.
I propose the creation of an energy security corporation to lead this effort to replace 2-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day by 1990. The corporation I will issue up to $5 billion in energy bonds, and I especially want them to be in small denominations so that average Americans can invest directly in America's energy security.
Just as a similar synthetic rubber corporation helped us win World War II, so will we mobilize American determination and ability to win the energy war. Moreover, I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation's first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.
These efforts will cost money, a lot of money, and that is why Congress must enact the windfall profits tax without delay. It will be money well spent. Unlike the billions of dollars that we ship to foreign countries to pay for foreign oil, these funds will be paid by Americans to Americans. These funds will go to fight, not to increase, inflation and unemployment.
I don't know whether or not Carter "got" Peak Oil. If you are a one issue guy, and you think he got that one issue, then I guess Carter's your boy.
But I stand by my opinion. I watched his speech from my living room.
His fatuousness was particularly vivid that night: importing oil does not cause inflation. Spending more government funds can't ease inflation. Import quotas are - at best - useless, and usually are quite harmful. Etc.
I'm now realizing it wasn't in his malaise speech, it was in something else. Trying to track it down. He said something about the nature of exponential growth, in that we used more oil in the 40's than ever before in human history, and then pulled the same trick in the 50's and 60's.
I'm not a one issue guy, but this one is big. It looked bigger a few years ago when certain breakthroughs in technology had not occurred, and I genuinely thought the final oil crisis was going to be catastrophic. Now I think it's just going to be "serious".
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