THE STRANGE THING...:

Bush's Mideast visit: Of faith, blogging and tourism (Steven Lee Myers, January 14, 2008, IHT)

As he traveled from Israel to the Gulf and, on Monday, to Saudi Arabia, keeper of Islam's holy sites, Bush repeatedly evoked monotheistic faith, arguing that it served as the foundation for freedom, justice and representative government.

"A great new era is unfolding before us," Bush said in a speech Sunday in an opulent hotel in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. "This new era is founded on the equality of all people before God. This new era is being built with the understanding that power is a trust that must be exercised with the consent of the governed - and deliver equal justice under the law."

Bush's brand of Christianity has unquestionably shaped his unswerving support for Israel, a support that is shared by many American evangelical Christians. But in Bethlehem, after touring the Church of the Nativity built atop the biblical birthplace of Jesus, he found in his faith the theological foundation for the creation of a Palestinian state.

"Someday I hope that as a result of a formation of a Palestinian state there won't be walls and checkpoints, that people will be able to move freely in a democratic state," he said, having witnessed himself Israel's security barriers and checkpoints. "That's the vision, greatly inspired by my belief that there is an Almighty, and a gift of that Almighty to each man, woman and child on the face of the Earth is freedom."

...is that the media and pundits are troubled by the basic ideas upon which the Republic is Founded.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 14, 2008 7:46 PM