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Show When Jesus Spoke to "The Burning Bush" An otherworldly conversation in the Oval Office By Jim Stiles NOTE: What follows is clearly a figment of my fatigued imagination. Iam rot a biblical scholar; lam probably not even a Christian as most religious organizations would define it. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, I wouldn't belong toa church that would have me as a member. But I grew up going to a Protestant church and, even asa child, can merneniber ie confused by Chester, Aner duel message. iy ue Gospels, Jesus opel of love and anger ies. Bush reached for the center of the page, crumpled the offending story in his trembling hand, and tossed it across the room, where it fluttered to rest on a sofa. The President looked upward, at the ceiling and toward nothing at all. I’ve never noticed those tiny cracks before, he thought to himself. That clarity again. So clearly could he see the detail. Finally, the President spread his arms, palms up and rhetorically pleaded, “Jesus Christ, why don’t you do something to shut these people up?” I'd like to tell you why. The President's flailing arms stopped inmid- ai Freezé-framed. Had he just heard a voice? It certainly didn’t come from either of the two'men hekhew to be in the room. Nah...and he almost chuckled to himself. He wondered; ‘Maybe ¥ did takeeid and ‘Int having a flashback or somethin.’ He put his hands to his facé’and gently rubbed his 6yé¥and then’ Slanced at Ashcroft who stood just behind him. He was about to tell an LSD joke he’d once heard while governor but stopped short. The Attorney General’s eyes were wild with fear and all the color had drained from his already pallid skin. Unable to speak, he shakily pointed to the sofa where the President had just hurled the newsprint. His mouth flapped desperately but small globules of spit were all he could produce. “T believe you should read this again.” And yet, ‘Christians are always fighting-against ae other, against a religions, against any es enemy. And it’s always done in the name of the man wh lig t of the concept of pacifism. This piece of fiction will probably enrage narrow-minded, conservative Christine who ca call it blasphemy. And it will enrage narrowminded knee-jerk liberals who will see it as a some violation of the separation of church and state (“Did you see the new Zephyr? It’s turning it into a Bible Study Newsletter!”) As for Bush and Ashcroft’s role in this drama, maybe I'm wrong. ike they'd surprise me if they were truly thrust into a similar situation. Maybe not....JS 7:43am on Sunday, March 16, 2003: George Bush knew something was different the moment he stepped into the Oval Office. There was a quality to the light that caused him to stop, dead in his wing-Hpped iacks, his rough hand still wrapped around the burnished brass handle, and stare warily into the icent room. What is this? He thought briefly as he tried to understand the view before him. The light, he pondered. Odd, though. It wasn’tas if the room was glowing or shimmering or luminescing in any way. No...it wasn’treally the lightat all. It was the clarity; every window, every chair, every item, large or small, in the room seemed to be etched more starkly and with more definition than he imagined possible. He’d heard acid trips were like this; in fact it almost felt like deja vu to the president. But he honestly couldn’t remember if he’d ever experimented with LSD ornot. The Good Old Days werestilla hazy fog to George W. Bush. And just as well. The great grey mist that in some ways defined the 43" President of the United States, gave him what his CIA director called, “plausible deniability.” “If you can’tremember what you did, you sure as hell can’t lie about it,” he used to assure the President, and George would flash his famous grin and say, “I’m not even sure I remember what you're talking about.” The Director would nod and think, He probably doesn’t. On this early Sunday morning in March, the President was in a hurry, had not expected to be challenged by anything “out of the ordinary” and was not particularly fond of such challenges in the first place. He hadn’t got this far by thinking “outside the box” and had no intention of starting now. Blind faith, he liked to say about himself. No need to over-analyze. He blinked at the strange unsettling scene in the famous room. Scanned the office from side to side. Blinked again. Shrugged. With him this morning, by odd coincidence, was the President's Attorney General, John Ashcroft. Bush respected the intelligence and advice of his AG and admired the tough stance Ashcroft had assumed in the War on Terror. “I told him to leave no stone unturned, but ol’ John takes the stones and puts ‘em in a wire cage...] like that,” Bush had once commented. The two men | got to admit." The President ran his hand across his brow. Beads of sweat trickled into his disbelieving eyes. "In fact, you look like... good God." He turned to his attorney general. "John, are you seeing this?" Ashcroft said nothing. ¥ ",..well hell, Bush said, " you look like..Jesus Christ!" did not know each other intimately and the very proper Ashcroft would have been furious to hear his relationship with George W. described in such a fashion. “I don’t think intimate is a word I would use to describe my long and platonic relationship with the President!” he might sniff at the suggestion. “What kind of man do you think I am!...We are just friends.” John Ashcroft did seem a bit homophobic at times. The Attorney General had almost collided with the President's backside as Bush pulled up so sharply at the office door. What is he doing? Ashcroft thought to himself. How would that look if I bumped him in such an unseemly fashion? But a couple seconds passed, John took a couple steps backward and waited. “Anything wrong, Mr. President?” “Uh...no...nuthin’ wrong at all John. Come on in.” The President was looking for a newspaper article that had, in the Chief Executive’s words, “frosted my butt.” It was an article from the Washington Post and it was about the National Council of Church’s opposition to the upcoming War in Iraq. The Council had the temerity, the audacity to oppose the President's plan to invade the Land of Saddam Hussein. Had gone so far as to suggest that Bush’s war plans were immoral. The President was livid. “It's here somewhere,” Bush growled over his shoulder as he searched a stack of magazines and papers on a small table by the President's desk. “You'd think Condi and Karl would just hide this crap from me so I didn’t have to read it....Now I’m all...riled up!” The Council's criticism barely made a dent in the President's public approval ratings. Only Bush and his top aids knew that war in Iraq was, on this Sunday morning, merely a matter of days away. Yet, clearly, the vast majority of the American people stood solidly behind President Bush and his plan to attack Iraq with overwhelming military force. His leadership after September 11 in the War on Terror had so overwhelmed even the liberal media, that few ifany Americans dared to challenge his agenda. The Council of Churches was a rare exception. Still itrankled the Commander-in-Chief. “Here it is,” Bush mumbled. “Damn it...Have you read this, John?” “Yes, Mr. President...shameful and unpatriotic is the only way I can characterize it.” “Damn straight. Here, listen to this...This is from some guy named Reverend Day. From something called the General Board of Global Ministries. He says, ‘We seek to build a better relationship between conflicting parties rather than to promote either armed retaliation or military intervention.’ Well isn’t that nice? It says here that he calls war a “monster.” Oh yeah..this is the part that really torques me. Get this. ‘Iam appalled that the United States and its allies are launching such a mighty military attack on a country where, perhaps one-half of the population is made up of children.’ So what's he sayin’? That I want to kill kids?” The more the President lingered over the newspaper, the more furious he became. The Attorney General noticed the president's face was flushed and the veins in his neck visibly throbbed as he hunched over the desk. From time to time, Bush would pound his tightly clenched fist on the smooth mahogany and Ashcroft thought to himself, This is good. Righteous indignation is a quality the President should exhibit more frequently. a "You do look familiar, WS Bush followed schoo eencady finger. On the sofa, by the fireplace, sata man and he looked familiar. “My God!” screamed Ashcroft at last. “We have a security breach! I'll call the Secret Service!” Bush stumbled backward and took refuge behind the big oak desk. But the telephone and intercom were both dead. Ashcroft’s cell phone didn’t work. Even their shouts and screams went unheeded. Ashcroft ran to the doors but they would not open. They weren’t locked. He could turn the handle but he seemed to lack the strength to open them. Less than 20 feet away, on the sidewalk by the Rose Garden, a Secret Service agent stood placidly, oblivious to the calls for help. “Tmean you no harm...I’ve simply come to answer your question.” Bush fell backward into his thick leather chair, dazed and bewildered and terrified. “Don’t you know who I am?” For the first time, Bush focused his attention on the young bearded man who sat calmly on the white sofa by the presidential fireplace. The glow from the fire flickered lightly on the man’s face. Again, Bush noticed the clarity and he considered the man more closely now. His hair was brown and long and fell over his shoulders. He wore a simple long robe, bound at the waist by a braided cord. His eyes, his face conveyed—compassion. The President himself realized that he was no longer afraid; yet he could not stop trembling. He sat upright in his desk chair and spoke to the strange intruder. “You do look familiar, I got to admit.” The President ran his hand across his brow. Beads of sweat had appeared and now trickled into his disbelieving eyes. “In fact, you look like....go0d God.” He turned to his attorney general. “John, are you seeing this?” Ashcroft nodded but said nothing. Bush rose from his chair. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you look like...well hell...you look like...Jesus Christ!” The man smiled slightly and nodded. “I look like Jesus Christ because this is how you expected me to look. Please. Come sit here with me. We have so much to talk about.” The President steadied himself on the desk as he moved uncertainly around it. He trembled so violently that he wondered if his legs would support him, once he tried to stand onhis own, without the assistance of his own desk. “Please. There is no reason to be afraid.” George Bush negotiated the several steps it took to reach the richly upholstered chair that sat adjacent to the man on the sofa. The man stood and offered his hand. “Yes...l am who you think I am.” Bush felt the warmth and sincerity in the handshake, but his hand still quivered, although just slightly. The President settled into the chair, stretched his legs in front of him and exhaled a long deep breath. PAGE12 “Whew!” The President sighed. “You'll have to excuse me. But this is a lot for me to take in, all |
