Anti-Climacus

WELL: In response to my Foreign Correspondent's question about whether Bush's Christianity means he can't have motives that are bad for the country.

I suppose I'd make a bit of a distinction. I believe that deep down, Bush wants what is really best for America (and I think the same holds for pretty much anyone who seeks public office), and he's going to act more or less consistently with what he thinks is right. Now it may be the case that his actions have bad results--it's perfectly legitimate to call him out on that, when applicable. The thing I wince at is the step back in logic and assuming because the results were bad, the motivations may have been bad--e.g. the whole "Bush lied" thing. It may be the case that there were no WMD, and maybe he convinced a lot of people to support going into Iraq because of WMD, and if those are true, then it's true that the things he said were false. But to say he lied is to say that he knew everything about WMD was false, and said it anyway with the aim of acheiving some other, less altruistic goal.

I'm not even expressly denying that the above may be the case, but I feel like the principle of (philosophical) conservatism and the reality of his Christianity mean that I shouldn't begin with the idea that his motives were as bad as they could've been.