Where do I start with this very sad missive that I feel must be stated for once and for all with my own limited means of expression? President George W. Bush will be leaving the White House tomorrow and believe it or not, he will be missed, if not immediately, within twenty months of this day. That he has been ripped to shreds by the political elite who knew what they were doing has been quite obvious since the 2000 election. That he has been treated with profound disrespect by Barack Obama throughout the presidential election and especially the transition is quite apparent.

That President George W. Bush has borne all of this with grace is crystal clear.

That the man who will become our next president tomorrow is just a man, has not been made clear by the no longer objective media. Barack Obama is not Abraham Lincoln or the second coming of Christ although some in the American punditocracy seems to believe he is. He could possibly be the Pied Piper.

That Obama is now a cult like leader is a frightening truth.

That Obamamania has become an obsession has been obvious for quite some time.

Because when it comes to Obama, hyperbole seems to be the rule, not the exception.

His charms seem tough to resist, even for some of Hollywood’s biggest names.

“He walks into a room and you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere,” George Clooney told talk show host Charlie Rose.

“I’ll do whatever he says to do,” actress Halle Berry said to the Philadelphia Daily News. “I’ll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear.”

Welcome to the cult of Barack Obama.

Not that the singer Bruce Springsteen’s utterances matter much at all but he launched an attack on President Bush yesterday in an interview which was published just as he was singing at the ‘We Are One’ concert on the mall celebrating the inauguration.

The Born to Run singer said that the US was now “suffering the consequences” of eight years of rule by a “very radical group of people” who had attempted to undermine the country’s democratic values.

Describing President Bush’s period in power as a “nightmare” for most Americans, the songwriter said: “We had a historically blind administration who didn’t take consideration of the past; thousands of thousands of people died, lives were ruined and terrible, terrible things occurred because there was no sense of real history, no sense that the past is living and real.”

In a rare interview, Springsteen said that President-Elect Barack Obama’s election represented the triumph of the values and spirit he had attempted to capture in his music.

That we no longer have an objective national media is more than plain to see.

Even some members of the media, trained to be “objective” and to withhold their own emotions while reporting, were lip synching the lyrics as Bono wowed the crowd, on the day before MLK Day, with a rendition of U2’s “(Pride) In the Name of Love.”

People were incredibly friendly, except, of course, for the one photographer in the media section who brought a stepping stool so he could tower over the other journalists.

The fanfare of it all struck me immediately after I got off the Metro train in the morning. As some left the station, they chanted, O-BA-MA! And then there were the streets littered with Obama merchandise.

One woman quickly showed me the small selection of Obama candy bars that she was selling.

“You can’t eat them, though,” she said. “They’re a collector’s item.” (I did end up buying one for $2, but only because I was hungry.)

The list goes on: Obama buttons, picture frames, even a set of playing cards.

“Get your Obama playing cards–where George Bush is the joker in every deck!” shouted the street vendor.

That we have very few individuals with courage in the Republican party is clearly observable.

That the conservative pundits we used to trust have bought into the Obama magic.

They want to see him succeed. At what one would ask?

On this Martin Luther King holiday I was taking a longer time to wake this morning. Not jumping out of bed to make coffee, just dreaming and coming to wakefulness slowly. First, praying for my family, then contemplating the day, and watching the light filter in the room.

Then, I remembered Martin Luther King’s profound statement about his dream that his four little children would one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

That dream seems to have come true in the election of Barack Obama.

Yes, I will pray for President Barack Obama in this respect…that he will soberly undertake the mantle of leadership of our nation and the free world. That he will consider that the national and economic security of our country should go hand in glove. Is this too much to ask?

We will see.

Hope and change are symbolic words, not policy deliverables as some Americans will be expecting once Obama takes over the reins of government but these words are supposedly what Obama told his wife, Michelle that he hoped to offer America when he was inaugurated. This is pretty thin gruel. There is nothing there that speaks of strong character, deep insight, or even of a deep love of anything. There has been no on-the-knees-Apostle Paul, sacrificial moment, “here I am Lord, send me.”

There is such a striking difference in the way this inauguration is being covered by the media and the celebrities that are flocking to it. One would think there was never a September 11th, or a war on terror. The holiday from history begins.

But what of the ripping to shreds of George W. Bush? It still continues and if Nancy Pelosi and her compatriots in congress have their way, it will continue while they tax and spend and spend and tax. The media will give them cover on the evening news by covering the testimony of the show trial.

It’s been this way since 2000. As Sissy Willis writes: to trash Bush was to belong.

What I’ve been getting to in this missive is a dream I had back in 1998. First of all, some background. I am a Christian and a Southern Baptist. I look askance at psychics and fortune tellers and all that.

But in my life I have had a few dreams that have come true. Just a few.

In the late winter of 1999 I became aware of George W. Bush because of the news that the previous November he had won his second gubernatorial race in Texas by a record 69%. Bill Clinton had just come through the impeachment with the senate voting to let him off.

One night I dreamed that George W. Bush was standing alone in the middle of a boxing ring seemingly the winner of a fierce fight and there was a sort of fogginess around him mixed with a golden aura. He seemed to have on a golden robe and a serene and yet determined look on his face. I awoke with a start. A thought came to me right away, “he will be the next president.”

I remembered that dream throughout the presidential primaries and even bought a book to learn more about him. When it looked like Gore was going to win the election after the networks called Florida for him I was pretty dejected and decided to go to bed (we were living in Germany) but I remembered the dream and knew that it would come true.

I remembered the catcalls from many in the media about President Bush’s Christian faith and statements that he had made about being called to a purpose that they had twisted, implying that Bush felt that he was called by God to be president. All sorts of calumnies like this were hurled at President Bush.

When one thinks what he did face just eight months in to his presidency, standing up against the most vile of all evil that our nation has ever had to face and yet for that he has received nothing but vilification from those who should have known better. They do know better but for political purposes they have chosen not to acknowledge that fact.

I’ve often wondered if I were the only one who could see the spiritual side of the fight that President Bush has had to endure in his sacrificial presidency to protect and defend our nation but no, there are some who do. Taking a step back from politics is helpful for one to see the other aspects of the job of a commander in chief.

Paul Kengor in the American Thinker writes of the sacrificial Presidency of President Bush and compares it to Aslan at the Stone Table in the movie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

My mind, however, for several years now, has raced back to another movie when I think about George W. Bush — actually, a scene in the movie, based on a scene in a book by the same name. These final days of the Bush presidency seem an apt time to share it.

The scene is from C. S. Lewis’s classic, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” It takes place when the Christ figure, the lion, Aslan, is led like a lamb to the slaughter at the Stone Table, where he is killed by the White Witch and every ugly hobgoblin of the netherworld. Aslan knows this is what he must endure for the larger good. Lewis described it this way:

A great crowd of people were standing all round the Stone Table and though the moon was shining many of them carried torches which burned with evil-looking red flames and black smoke. But such people! Ogres with monstrous teeth, and wolves, and bull-headed men….

A howl and a gibber of dismay went up from the creatures when they first saw the great Lion pacing toward them…. Then [the Witch] recovered herself and gave a wild, fierce laugh. “The fool!” she cried. “The fool has come. Bind him fast…. Bind him I say!”

The Hags made a dart at him and shrieked with triumph when they found that he made no resistance at all….

And they surged round Aslan, jeering at him…. But he never moved. And this seemed to enrage all that rabble. Everyone was at him now….

At last [the Witch] drew near. She stood by Aslan’s head. Her face was working and twitching with passion, but his head looked up at the sky, still quiet, neither angry nor afraid, but a little sad. Then, just before she gave the blow, she stooped down and said in a quivering voice, “And now, who has won? Fool….”

She plunged the knife. It was finished.

The movie portrays this bracing scene vividly and unforgettably. It needs to be seen to be appreciated.

The rest of Kengor’s piece needs to be read in order to be appreciated.

The Americans who watched President Bush standing on that pile of rubble in 2001 boldly telling the world that those who knocked down the buildings would be hearing from us soon were touched by his strength and determination. (we know this because of his overwhelmingly high poll numbers) Now, at the end of his presidency, as we see the progress that our military has made, the Iraq war won, a Democracy in the Middle East being built, AlQaeda weakened and still on the run, to counter all this success, it took many malicious mouths and a determined daily drubbing by the media to knock down President Bush’s popularity but still, he leaves office as serene and determined as he entered it.

President Bush is a good man. He served our country with honor. He doesn’t deserve the malicious treatment he has received.

Still, we will see who has won. Fool….

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